THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
PRESENTED BY
PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID
A Labrador Spring
AN EARLY SPRING ARRIVAL IN SOUTHERN LABRADOR.
Frontispiece
A LABRADOR
SPRING
BY
CHARLES W. TOWNSEND, M. D,
Author of ' 'Jtlong the Labrador Coast, ' ' etc.
With Illustrations from Photographs
BOSTON <i* DANA ESTES &
COMPANY 4 MDCCCCX
Copyright, 1910
BY DANA ESTES & COMPANY
All rights reserved
Electrotyfed and Printed by
THE COLONIAL PRESS
C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, U.S.A.
k-
T4
Preface
PRESIDENT LOWELL in his inaugural address
said to the professional man that " a firm
grasp of some subject lying outside of his
vocation is an advantage." The following
chapters are the result of a five-weeks' trip
in May and June, 1909, by one who tries to
live up to this advice. Although that subject,
as may be gathered from these chapters, is
ornithology, yet it may also be gathered that all
branches of natural history on this Labrador
coast were a delight to the writer, and that
human studies, both Indian and white, came
in for a full share of his observations. And
perhaps this is well, for, as Professor Shaler
said, " the most of our kind are not natural-
ists but humanists." In any event it is hoped
that the following lines, which have been used
by the Harvard Travellers Club, are appro-
priate :
v
PREFACE
"He traded not with luker sotted,
He went for knowledge and he got it."
The substance of Chapter VIII originally
appeared in two papers published in the Auk
in April and July, 1909, and part of Chapter
IV, in the Auk of April, 1910, and I am indebted
to the editor for permission to republish in
this form. I wish to express my thanks to
Professor M. L. Fernald and Mr. Walter Deane
for botanical identifications, to Prof. E. C.
Jeffrey and his assistant Mr. E. W. Sinnott
for the photograph of the little larch and the
photomicrograph of its cross-section, and par-
ticularly to Mr. A. C. Bent for some of the
illustrations and for his companionship in this
Labrador Spring.
VI
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
PREFACE v
I. A LABRADOR SPRING n
II. FROM SEVEN ISLANDS TO ESQUIMAUX POINT 36
III. AN ACADIAN VILLAGE 64
IV. THE COURTSHIPS OF SOME LABRADOR BIRDS 83
V. THE CRUISE OF " LA BELLE MARGUERITE "
FROM ESQUIMAUX POINT TO NATASHQUAN 103
VI. THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS . . . 130
VII. THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS .... 149
VIII. WINGS AND FEET IN THE AIR AND UNDER
WATER 180
IX. SOME LABRADOR TREES 206
X. SOME LABRADOR RIVERS 220
INDEX 251
vn
List of Illustrations
PAGB
AN EARLY SPRING ARRIVAL IN SOUTHERN LABRADOR
(See page i^'f) Frontispiece
MOUNTAIN SAXIFRAGE ON LIMESTONE CLIFFS OF ES-
QUIMAUX ISLAND 17
NEARER VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN SAXIFRAGE . . 17
SNOWBANK AND VEGETATION JUNE 4 . . . .30
SNOWBANK AND VEGETATION JUNE 13 ... 30
INDIAN MOTHER AND TEN DAYS' OLD INFANT . . 37
THE TOWN OF SEVEN ISLANDS 37
HUDSON'S BAY POST OF MINGAN. MOUNTAIN RIDGE
IN THE DISTANCE 45
THE BARRIER MOUNTAIN RIDGE BACK OF MINGAN
SHOWING POISED BOULDER 45
THE BEST HUNTER OF THE TRIBE, JUST BACK FROM
THE NORTHWEST RIVER 50
A MONTAGNAIS COUPLE AT MlNGAN .... 50
INDIAN MOTHER AND CHILD AT MINGAN ... 60
TOADSTOOL - SHAPED LIMESTONE ROCKS AT ESQUI-
MAUX ISLE ......... 60
PREPARATIONS FOR THE FISHING SEASON ... 73
THE PROCESSION AT THE FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI
AT ESQUIMAUX POINT 78
ix
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
RAISING THE HOST AT THE " REPOSITORY " 78
RETURNING TO THE CHURCH OF ST. PIERRE AT THE
FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI 82
NEST OF GREAT BLACK - BACKED GULL ... 86
NEST OF EIDER DUCK 86
ENTRANCE TO PUFFIN BURROW, BALD ISLAND . . 96
WATER WORN LIMESTONE ROCKS AT BALD ISLAND.
NESTING SHELVES FOR RAZOR - BILLED AUKS . 96
" LA BELLE MARGUERITE " AND OUR GALLANT CREW 105
MATHIAS AND MARTIAL AND THE BEAVER . . . 115
THE BEAVER SKIN , . .' 115
A CORNER OF A CORMORANT ROOKERY AT SEAL ROCK 12^
NEST AND EGGS OF DOUBLE - CRESTED CORMORANT . 125
A BLACK Fox PARK AT PIASHTE - BAI . . .136
PIASHTE - BAI RIVER AND LAKE FROM THE BEGINNING
OF THE HIGH LAND OF THE INTERIOR . . 136
THREE LITTLE INDIAN GIRLS 143
TWO MONTAGNAIS COMPANIONS AT MlNGAN . -143
INDIANS SHAVING SEAL SKIN AT THE ISLES DES COR-
NEILLES . . . ... . . . 154
THE PAPOOSE . . , ' . . . . . 154
WIGWAM IN PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTION AT MINGAN 157
COMPLETED WIGWAM 157
WIGWAM AND INDIAN FAMILY AT PIASHTE - BAI . 159
INDIANS AT THE ISLES DES CORNEILLES . . . 159
LOADING THE CANOE 163
THE EMBARKATION OF THE MONTAGNAIS AT NATASH-
QUAN FOR MUSQUARRO . . . . . 163
OUR HOST, THE SALMON - FISHER AT MINGAN, AND
His OLD COMPANION 170
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
MR. J. A. WILSON, FACTOR AT THE H. B. C. POST
AT MlNGAN, ON THE STEPS OF THE COMPANY'S
HOUSE BUILT BY MR. DONALD ALEXANDER SMITH,
NOW LORD STRATHCONA AND MONT ROYAL . 170
THE LAST LEAF ON THE TREE, SAID TO BE 104 YEARS
OLD 179
MY ESCORT AMONG THE INDIANS AT MINGAN . .190
PIERRE OF PIASHTE - BAI AND THE BEAVER, SHOWING
WEBBED HIND FOOT OF THE BEAVER, AND
" SKIN BOOTS " OF MAN 197
DWARFED SPRUCES DEAD AND ALIVE AT ESQUIMAUX
ISLAND 205
ANCIENT LARCH AT QUATACHOO 205
LARCH TREE SIXTEEN YEARS OLD, FROM BOG AT
ESQUIMAUX ISLAND; SLIGHTLY ENLARGED . . 211
PHOTOMICROGRAPH OF SECTION OF TRUNK SHOWING
SIXTEEN ANNUAL RINGS 211
THE OLD SALMON - FISHER OF MINGAN TENDING
His NETS 221
THE MINGAN RIVER BACK OF THE H. B. C. POST . 227
NEST OF THE PIGEON HAWK 227
FALLS OF THE MINGAN 235
THE ROMAINE RIVER NORTH OF ESQUIMAUX POINT 235
FALLS OF PIASHTE - BAI RIVER 243
NEAR THE FOOT OF THE FALLS ..... 243
BOG ENCROACHING ON POOL AND FOREST ENCROACH-
ING ON BOG 248
SPRUCE FOREST, SNOW - BANK AND THE RIVER OF THE
CROW . . . 248
A Labrador Spring
CHAPTER I
A LABRADOR SPRING
" Come, gentle Spring, ethereal Mildness, come." Thomson.
OOME years ago in Labrador in late July,
I was interested to see within the space
of a few yards all stages of the seasons from
mid-winter to mid-summer. In the shelter
of a rugged cliff was a snow-drift as white and
devoid of life as winter itself. At its edge, for
the space of a few inches, the ground was bare
and brown; grasses and procumbent willows
showed no evidence of life. A little further
away the first signs of spring were visible in the
swelling buds of the willows ; a few feet further
and one came on the bake-apple and Labrador
tea in bud; still further removed in space
from grim winter, they were as much in blos-
som as in mid-summer, while at a distance of
11
A LABRADOR SPRING
three or four yards more, the ripening berries
of autumn could be found. Here was no
need of long journeys to pass from winter to
summer, nor of long tarrying in one place for
the seasons to pass. The melting snow-drift,
the brief spring and the short arctic summer
condensed all the seasons in space and time.
Spring is a long process in New England.
From the first appearance of the blue-bird
and skunk cabbage in early March or even
in late February, to the departure of the last
black-poll warbler for the north and the falling
of the apple blossoms in early June, spring
dallies along the way for over three months.
Not only does spring dally in this temperate
region, but, in its early progress, it sustains
frequent interruptions eruptions one might
call them if that hot word can be used in a
cold sense of winter.
I have always longed to watch the arrival
of spring in the country, but to absent oneself
from one's duties for over three months is
plainly out of the question. The northern
spring, however, has its advantages in these
hustling times; it is a hustler itself. The
change from mid-winter to mid-summer is so
12
A LABRADOR SPRING
brief that northern regions are said to have no
spring. The whole glorious ecstasy of burst-
ing buds and migrating birds is concentrated
into the space of a few weeks or even days.
As the bake-apple springs into flower when
the snowbank melts, so does spring burst
upon the scene in these regions when winter
departs.
It was with great eagerness therefore that
I explored the country on my arrival at Es-
quimaux Point in southern Labrador on May
24th for signs of spring, fearing that I might
be too late, and that the summer had already
come. Fortunately it was a tardy season
and all was still wintery. Cartwright in his
Labrador journal of May 21, 1771, one hundred
and thirty-eight years and three days before,
made this record: "The first green leaf ap-
peared to-day, which was a currant/* I found
some wild currant x bushes but they were only
in bud and the leaves did not appear until a
few days later. The alders still kept their
buds closed, but they had already begun to
hang out their " golden curls," and the yellow
1 The scientific names of the birds and plants will be
found in the Index after the common names.
13
A LABRADOR SPRING
pollen floated on the pools of water that came
from the dwindling snowbanks. Snowbanks
were everywhere, the largest often on the
warmest or southern slopes, a paradox that
could be explained by the fact that in the
southern lees, the snow, driven by the pre-
vailing northerly gales of winter, had accumu-
lated to great depths, and, although exposed
to more sunlight, took longer to melt than
did the smaller banks on the wind-swept
northern exposures. The larch and the canoe
birch, the mountain ash, and the red osier
were all bare and wintery, but on the ground
an occasional fresh grass blade, or the bud
of the cow parsnip, Cartwright's " alex-
ander," could be found.
The presence of such arctic birds as snow-
buntings, making the green spruces look like
Christmas trees when they perched on their
branches, added to the wintery aspect of the
scene, and although the hardier summer birds
like the robin, fox sparrow, Lincoln's sparrow,
white -throated and white-crowned sparrows
had arrived and were in full song, most of the
summer residents were still tarrying farther
south, and had been passed during our more
14
A LABRADOR SPRING
rapid railroad migration to the north. I
breathed a sigh of relief at the result of this
hasty survey of the situation, for I had arrived in
time, and in the next four weeks I was to be
present at the rapid change from winter to
summer, at the miracle of the Labrador
spring.
Although there were no fresh green leaves
to be seen, there was no absence of this colour
in vegetation, and it was not limited to the
cone-bearing trees to which the name evergreen
is usually limited. These latter are quickly enu-
merated, namely the black, white and a few red
spruces, the balsam fir and two kinds of ground
juniper, for there were no pines in this region,
and spruce and fir were by far the prevailing
trees. On the ground of the bogs or barrens,
which extend their vegetation into the spruce
forests, the universal sphagnum moss as well
as many other mosses were evergreen. As
the various lichens which abound in Labrador
assume every colour of the rainbow, some of
these also were green. Clumps of pitcher-plant
leaves were everywhere in the bogs, looking
often as fresh and intact as if they had been pre-
served in a green-house, instead of lying buried
15
A LABRADOR SPRING
under the snow for seven long months. Many
of these, however, merged from green to red,
to magenta and deep mahogany colour. The
dark green shining leaves of the goldthread
also came out intact from the cold storage
of winter, and the laurel and Labrador tea
formed great clumps of colour which shaded
off from pale olive green to dark brown.
Another abundant evergreen in the bogs
was the cassandra or leather-leaf, pale green
and silvery in colour with drooping leaves,
while the andromeda, undismayed by the long
winter, carried its dark green, narrow leaves
erect. These last two and the laurel were in
full blossom by the end of the third week in
June, but now were blossomless.
In the woods the dwarf cornel came out from
the winter with leaves intact, but blushing
deep red, while, forming a carpet with its
tiny green leaves and running branches, was
everywhere the snowberry, appropriately
called Mogenes, or born of the snow. Another
broad leaf evergreen to be found especially
on gravelly open places near the shores, and
one which, prone on the ground, spread like
great mats over several square feet of surface,
16
MOUNTAIN SAXIFRAGE ON LIMESTONE CLIFFS OF ESQUIMAUX ISLAND.
NEARER VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN SAXIFRAGE.
A LABRADOR SPRING
was the bearberry. This also came into
flower before we left.
Although not a new leaf bud had opened,
there was one conspicuous exception to the
flowerless vegetation, and this was the moun-
tain saxifrage which grew in great abundance
on the limestone cliffs of Esquimaux Island.
It is a tufted moss-like plant, the leaves ever-
green and inconspicuous, but the flowers, of a
wonderful shade of pink, so crowded the ends
of the short stems that they formed glorious
masses of colour, hanging in festoons from the
cliffs or studding the rocks in great bosses.
It was in full flower when we first discovered it
on May 25th, and it exhaled a fragrance like
that of the trailing arbutus, but much more
delicate.
Another sign of spring was the continued
trilling of toads which greeted my ears that first
evening at the Pointe aux Esquimaux, -
a sound which is always associated in my mind
with pussy willows and a brown, wet country-
side, but with the glorious promise of bright
flowers, migrating birds and the coming of sum-
mer. Although this sound is at times almost
overpowering in its intensity in New England
17
A LABRADOR SPRING
where toads abound, it is rarely noticed ex-
cept by the initiated, and to those who have
not consciously heard it, it is rather difficult
to describe. Gadow speaks of this love-song
of the toad, for love-song it certainly is, as
" a peculiar little noise, something like the
whining bleat of a lamb." As most people
appear to be deaf to the bird notes and even
bird songs that may actually fill the air about
them, so are they also, but to an even greater
degree, deaf to this humble music of the toad ;
a song which, from its association with the
season at least, has its charms. The louder
and better known notes of the hylas were
absent on these shores.
In these northern regions spring advances
by bounds, and the saying that " nature
never makes leaps " was certainly contra-
dicted by an experience on the eleventh day of
June. On this day, while we were eating our
dinner on the banks of the Romaine River,
enjoying the wonderful beauty of the scene, lis-
tening to the undertone of the rapids and the
incisive song of the redstart, and breathing
in the aromatic, incense-like perfume of the
alder catkins, a birch, released by the melting
18
A LABRADOR SPRING
of the snow, suddenly leaped up to greet the
sun. It was still bare as in winter, but in a
few days it would be clothed with the fresh
green that its recently escaped companions had
already assumed.
Birches and especially alders accommodate
themselves to the winter snows, and submis-
sively bend before them, but with the coming
of summer their bonds melt away and they
arise unharmed from their supine position.
In this winter pressure the birch very rarely
breaks, the alder, almost never. Not so the
spruce, the larch and the fir, and green-stick
fractures of these trees abound, and sometimes
in the lee of a bank where the snow settles
in deep, heavy masses, these trees show the
scars of many winters by a series of partial
breaks. In some of these the trunk assumes
a position at right angles with its original
growth, and parallel with the ground; in
other cases the trunk points downward at first,
but in any event, unless fatally wounded, the
tree again aspires, only to be beaten down
again perchance in another winter. Around
the breaks calli in the form of rounded
masses of wood form just as they do about
19
A LABRADOR SPRING
broken bones, until the tree presents a woe-
fully crooked and crippled appearance. One
of these warty calli as big as a man's head
was shown me at Natashquan, where it had
been preserved as a curiosity. The difficulties
of Labrador tree-life are great!
Perhaps the most active week in this brief
spring drama was that of the third to the tenth
of June. On the third I found white violets
covering a sunny bank hitherto bare, while
a few marsh mangolds, their bright yellow
flowers contrasting well with their dark, almost
black leaves, appeared on the edges of a brook
fed by a snowbank. Near by a few ferns were
pushing up their " fiddle-heads " from the
rich mould, and the cow parsnip was sending
up its buds of folded leaves beside the gigantic
dead stalks which had survived the winter
storms. The dwarf willows and birch were trying
to show green in their leaf-buds, and the larger
buds of the mountain ash were slowly unfolding.
On the next day I found the first white flower
of the goldthread, and on the fifth the cur-
rant, the first shrub to leaf out, was in blossom.
June 7th was a red letter day in the spring
calendar. The red osier, hitherto so bereft
20
A LABRADOR SPRING
of foliage, but noticeable by its red and green
stems, began to thrust out its opposite, pointed
leaf-buds, canoe birch leaves were half out,
the fiddle-heads were unfolding, and, like
magic, groups of tiny orchids had sprung into
being. This orchid, a calypso, with its broad,
rounded leaf rose two or three inches from the
moss, each plant bearing a single flower,
a five rayed one, between pink and purple
in colour, with a brilliant gold spot on the
delicately veined lip. One is apt to associate
orchids with tropical or at least warm climates
only, but this little orchid extends its range
from Labrador to Alaska. Near where I first
found this orchid on Esquimaux Island, there
were numerous arrivals among the birds, for the
night before had been a favourable one for
migration, and small birds that feed by day
must of necessity use the night for migration.
The association of orchids, spruce forests,
snowbanks, magnolia warblers and redstarts
certainly seemed an unusual one, and I satis-
fied my enjoyment of the incongruous by
following a redstart until his brilliant red and
black plumage was set off by a background
of dark spruces and white snow.
21
A LABRADOR SPRING
Another flower, almost as charming as the
orchid, I found for the first time on this day,
springing up from its procumbent mass of
dark, evergreen foliage, the mountain avens
or dryas, a rock nymph rather than a wood
nymph, however, for it grew on the scanty
soil of the limestone ledges close to the
sea. The leaves are arrow-head shaped,
dark, shining green above, white below, while
the flowers, growing in abundance on short
erect stems, open their lovely white cups,
like single roses, to the sky. Where the buds
of these conspicuous flowers were hidden
but a week before, I do not know, although
I had collected and pressed this pretty
evergreen without even suspecting that it
would be covered with conspicuous flowers a
week later. The mountain avens extends its
range through arctic America even to Green-
land.
Another exceedingly pretty little flower, a
lilac coloured one, that sprang up on the lime-
stone rocks at this time, was especially notice-
able on account of its leaves which were cov-
ered with a white powder below. This was a
variety of the mealy primrose, and, curiously
22
A LABRADOR SPRING
enough, this variety had never been found
east of the Rocky Mountains before.
As in the Doone valley so here in Labrador
the words of John Ridd were appropriate, for
" the spring was in our valley now, creeping
first for shelter slyly in the pause of the bluster-
ing wind. . . . There she stayed and held
her revel, as soon as the fear of frost was gone ;
all the air was a fount of freshness, and the
earth of gladness, and the laughing waters
prattled of the kindness of the sun."
On this day also a snowbank which had cov-
ered a steep slope of Esquimaux Island, and
into which I had plunged to my waist in as-
cending to the higher land on May 25th, was
now breathing its last. I use this metaphor ad-
visedly, for much of the snow must disappear
by evaporation, and what melts does not all
stream down the hillside, but is largely absorbed,
as if in a great sponge, by the lichens and mosses.
These plants fulfil here the boy's definition
of a sponge as the only article with a bottom
full of holes that holds water. It is not, how-
ever, fair to say that these mosses had no
bottom, for, during the spring at least, they
are underlaid by hard ice. For example, on
23
A LABRADOR SPRING
June ist in a bog near the Natashquan River
I found ice everywhere about eight inches
below the surface of the moss. In a space where
there was no moss, and the dark brown, almost
black surface of the peaty mud attracted the
sun's rays, the ice was ten inches down. On the
same day in the lee of a bank a hundred feet
above the sea, the sun felt hot and the thermom-
eter registered 76 when exposed directly to its
rays. In the shade the temperature was 47,
and at a depth -of eleven inches in sandy,
peaty soil, all was hard frozen, and the ther-
mometer registered 32. No wonder vegeta-
tion, with such a cold region about its roots,
was tardy in its appearance.
On June nth near the Romaine River back
of Esquimaux Point I found the ice surface
ten inches beneath the moss in the bogs where
the surface was dry, while in wet places the
ice was sometimes twice as far away from the
surface, and in the mudholes and ponds, with
the sticks at hand I could find no hard ice
bottom at all. My friend remarked, in a mildly
sarcastic manner, as we were resting in one
of these endless Labrador bogs, that when
there were no birds in sight, and I had col-
24
A LABRADOR SPRING
lected all the botanical specimens within reach,
and had noted down all my observations, I
had always one resource left, I could dig
for ice.
My last exploration in this direction was
made on the 2ist of June. In a bog part way
up the mountains above the falls of the Mingan
River, I cut out a triangular piece of sphagnum
with my sheaf knife, and proceeded to dissect
the peaty soil below, and excavate it by hand.
Our Indian guide, who could not speak a word
of either English or French, gravely watched
the proceedings as I gradually dug until my
arm was inserted in the hole to the elbow.
At this depth the ground was very cold, but
I could feel no ice even with my knife-blade
thrust below. I then solemnly replaced the
triangular piece of sphagnum at the top of the
hole, and the Indian and I silently resumed
our march. I have often wondered whether
he thought I was seeking for gold, was per-
forming a religious ceremony or was merely a
little crazy.
Perhaps the most notable arrival of south-
erners on the day of the orchid and mountain
dryad, this glorious seventh of June was
25
A LABRADOR SPRING
a kingbird we saw at Esquimaux Island.
Now the kingbird is a very familiar and com-
monplace bird in New England, but it rarely ex-
tends its range to these boreal regions if we
can judge by the fact that no one but Audubon
had recorded it for southern Labrador before.
But on the last day of this week, June loth,
a day when my thermometer recorded the
highest temperature at noon, 62 in the shade,
although it was but 44 in morning and 48
at night, a day when I found the first bake-
apple flower, the shechootai of the Indians,
a burst of summer appeared in the form of
delightful little flycatchers that at once took
possession of all the alder thickets. The
flycatcher family is a confusing one, and even
the great Audubon was not infallible in this
direction. For example, he says in his " Birds
of America " of the wood pewee: " I have seen
them in Labrador," and on June 22, 1833, at
American Harbour near Natashquan he says
in his journal : " I heard a wood pewee." Now
the wood pewee is more southern in its range,
and Audubon was ignorant of the existence
of the yellow-bellied flycatcher, which was
first named by Baird some ten years later, and
26
A LABRADOR SPRING
which has a sweet, gentle whistling note re-
sembling very much one of the notes of the
wood pewee.
Bird songs are believed to be developments
from call-notes. In some cases this is very
evident. The European house sparrow repeats
its nerve-racking call-note so continuously, and
with such evident purpose on spring mornings,
that a thoughtful observer must admit that
this repetition constitutes the bird's love-song.
In other birds this connection is less evident, but
the evolution of the song can often be detected.
The wood pewee, by the irony of scientific fate
although technically classed among the non-
singing birds, has developed from its sweet and
simple whistling call-note a delightfully com-
plicated and truly musical composition, which,
without question, deserves the name of a song.
This in its delightful entirety is only vouch-
safed in the full ecstasy of passion. A first
cousin of the wood pewee, a bird that resembles
it as closely as the proverbial peas resemble
each other, has a very different song, which
indeed as a musical performance has no claim
to the name of song. This bird the least
flycatcher is also called the chebec from the
27
A LABRADOR SPRING
distinctness and frequency with which it calls
this incisive dissyllable in the spring. That
this constitutes the song with which it gives
vent to its emotions I think there can be no
question. Its call and conversational notes
are simple and short. Now our friend the
yellow-bellied flycatcher, whose arrival I have
just chronicled, a bird that is so abundant
on this southern Labrador coast after June
loth, has two distinct notes, one a soft, musical,
double whistle resembling that of its cousin
the wood pewee, and a harsh incisive je-let
very suggestive of the chebc of its other cousin
the least flycatcher.
I had always supposed that this latter note
was its song, while the whistle was merely
a call-note, but some observations I made in
this Labrador spring induced me to change my
mind, and tended to throw it into some con-
fusion on the subject. Thus I occasionally
stole on a bird unawares who was repeating
the sweet, double whistle at frequent intervals.
Here I said to myself is the first stage in the
evolution of a song, which in the course of
ages may become similar to the delightful
musical composition of the wood pewee, when
28
A LABRADOR SPRING
the bird, suddenly becoming aware of my
presence, changed its note to repeated ex-
plosions of its harsh je-let, and I was con-
vinced of the truth of my observations, and
concluded that the je-lt was merely an alarm
note and not a song. Unfortunately for this
theory, all the birds did not act in the same way,
and the same bird varied its course at different
times, for even when unaware of my undesir-
able presence, and in the absence of any visible
annoyance, these flycatchers would sometimes
repeat the ]e-l6t in a way that suggested the
pouring out of their souls in this soulless dis-
harmony a song not inferior to that of the
least flycatcher, and that is saying a good deal.
The same birds when disturbed would emit
at times the double whistle note. I was forced
to conclude therefore either that the yellow-
bellied flycatcher was developing one of two
songs, one to our ears musical, the other the
reverse, and, in this community at least, that
the particular song had not been determined,
or that the bird was developing two songs.
Let us hope that the soft and liquid whistle
may alone survive, and be further elaborated.
I am very sure, if the bird did but know it, his
29
A LABRADOR SPRING
sweetheart would prefer this song to the harsh
je-ltt.
A first cousin of the bake-apple, the arctic
raspberry, must have blossomed about this
same time, but I did not find it until June iyth,
when I came across great masses of the pinkish-
purple bloom in a marsh near the Mingan River.
Like the bake-apple, this modest raspberry
displays but two or three leaves besides its
blossoms, and is rarely more than two or three
inches high.
To return to the subject of snow and ice, I
would mention a snowbank in a lovely wooded
ravine near Esquimaux Point that I photo-
graphed with its leafless surroundings on June
4th. The region was almost birdless also,
for although I listened for an hour at this place
the only bird voice I heard was the hymn of the
hermit thrush but that one song was well
worth a full chorus of bird songs. After this,
hermit thrushes became common, but on this
day the song was heard for the first time in this
Labrador spring. On my walk to and from
the snowbank I found pipits, fox and white-
throated sparrows, juncos and snow buntings,
a few black-poll warblers, ruby-crowned king-
30
SNOWBANK AND VEGETATION JUNE 4.
SNOWBANK AND VEGETATION JUNE 13.
A LABRADOR SPRING
lets and robins. On the thirteenth of June
I again sought the ravine, and photographed
from the same spot the much dwindled snow-
bank around which the alders, birches and
mountain ashes were unfolding their leaves.
The woods were far from silent, as they had
been nine days before. Pipits and snow bunt-
ings had departed for more northern regions,
but, in addition to the other birds found
before, the woods were full of warblers. Black-
polls were everywhere, lisping their simple,
lazy songs; brilliant magnolia warblers and
redstarts displayed their yellows and reds and
blacks, and sang unceasingly; Wilson's war-
blers, jet black in cap, elsewhere bright yellow,
appeared undisturbed by my presence and
sang at close range ; a rare for these parts
Nashville warbler gave vent to the emotions
of his heart from a clump of mountain ash
sprouts, and, lastly, from among this gentle
band of warblers, a Maryland yellow-throat
not only sang from some bushes, but in the
intensity of his passion was borne aloft to the
level of the next terrace, and dove to earth
again, filling the air with a confusing and sur-
prising explosion of his calls and songs.
31
A LABRADOR SPRING
In the alder thickets by the brook fed by the
departing snows, yellow-bellied flycatchers were
common, and the wild but tender warbling
song of an unseen Lincoln's sparrow came
suddenly to my ears, and, at not infrequent
intervals, the more mechanical, ringing song
of the winter wren burst forth. These two
birds are about as easy to see as wood mice.
The contrast was as great among the birds as
in the appearance of the snowbank and the
surrounding vegetation on these two days.
It is difficult in these days of specialism to
be an all-round naturalist, but one need not be
an entomologist, if one has been in Labrador
in summer, to be very conscious of the fact
that in this cold, brief spring mosquitoes and
flies were singularly conspicuous by their ab-
sence. Although I noted two mosquitoes on
June ist, and several on June igth, as well as
flies, they were gentle, harmless things, and
the cold kept down the ardour of their passion
for human blood. In fact it was not until the
last day June 2ist that I was attacked by
black flies and mosquitoes, and that very feebly
and in scanty numbers. It is interesting to
note that Cartwright on this same day of June
32
A LABRADOR SPRING
in 1771 records in his journal: "A very hot
day, and the moschettos bit for the first time
this year."
For this relief many thanks! I can speak
with feeling, for in these parts, as old Hakluyt
puts it: " There is a kind of small fly or gnat
that stingeth and offendeth sorely, leaving
many red spots on the face and other places
where she stingeth." Hakluyt happens to be
right about the sex, for the male stingeth not.
In another place he speaks of " certaine sting-
ing Gnattes, which bite so fiercely that the
place where they bite shortly after swelleth
and itcheth very sore." But for quaintness
of description and ingenuity of spelling, the
following from Whitbourne, writing early in
1600 of the Newfoundland mosquito, is per-
haps the most satisfactory: " Onely a very
little nimble Fly (the least of all other
Flies), which is called a Muskeito; those Flies
seeme to have a great power and authority
upon all loytering and idle people that come
to the New-found-land; for they have this
property that, when they find any such lying
lazily, or sleeping in the Woods, they will
presently bee more nimble to seize upon him
A LABRADOR SPRING
than any Sargeant will bee to arrest a man for
debt."
The temperature of this Labrador spring as
revealed by my thermometer was rather cool,
for, as Whittier says:
" The Gulf, midsummer, feels the chill blockade
Of icebergs stranded at its northern gate."
It averaged during the last part of May and
the first part of June about 43 Far., morning
and night, and 50 at midday in the shade.
At night the thermometer generally went down
to 32. During the last part of our stay in
June the average was 46, morning and night,
and 51 in the middle of the day. The
highest temperature was 62 at mid-day on
June loth. Unfortunately, like all good ex-
plorers, I broke my thermometer on June i yth,
so that I had no record for the last six days
of our stay.
Although it was often bitterly cold in the
wind and out of the sun, it was often delight-
fully warm when these conditions were re-
versed, and a complete sun-bath was sur-
prisingly free from any sensations of chilliness,
in fact " toasty warm " even in the neighbour-
hood of a snowbank which, by reflection, in-
34
A LABRADOR SPRING
tensified the sun's rays. It is difficult to
measure the exact value of the effect of the
sun's rays on the bare skin, but that it is con-
siderable is easily appreciated by those who
have tried sun-baths, and experienced the
pleasant sense of well-being that results. As to
the value of a plunge in icy salt water after the
sun-bath, that may be open to question, and
my friend remarked that I probably enjoyed
these baths in the same spirit as did the his-
torical character, who employed a boy to pinch
him in order that he might experience a com-
fortable sense of relief when the process was
over. However, in the language of the country,
chacun a son gout, and my friend preferred to
keep his clothes on, but I am inclined to think
that a taste for these two invigorating pro-
cedures adds a great deal to one's appreciation
of the Labrador spring, which is certainly
rugged, and not one of " ethereal mildness,"
as the misleading quotation at the beginning
of this chapter might have led the gentle reader
to infer.
35
CHAPTER II
FROM SEVEN ISLANDS TO ESQUIMAUX POINT
" Backward and forward, along the shore
Of lorn and desolate Labrador
And found at last her way
To the Seven Islands Bay."
Whittier.
most maps the name Labrador is at-
tached only to the narrow strip under
the jurisdiction of Newfoundland on the Atlan-
tic coast, yet it belongs in reality to the entire
peninsula which begins at the Gulf of St. Law-
rence at the point where the 5oth parallel
strikes the coast. A line drawn from this point
to the southern extremity of Hudson Bay, or
rather of its offshoot, James Bay, separates
the great peninsula from the rest of Canada.
This westernmost point of the Labrador coast
in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is about thirty
miles to the west of Seven Islands, and about
three hundred and fifty east of Quebec.
As we approached the Labrador coast, after
36
INDIAN MOTHER AND TEN DAYS OLD INFANT.
THE TOWN OF SEVEN ISLANDS.
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT
an interesting sail down the mighty St. Law-
rence from Quebec, we could see in the clear
morning air the precipitous mountains of
Gasp6, sixty miles to the south, in places white
with snow and brilliantly illuminated by the
morning sun, but dark in the shadows of the
deep ravines. The whole southern coast of
Labrador is notable for its rivers which empty
their floods, swelled in the spring by the melting
snows, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The
first of these is the St. Marguerite River, which,
like nearly all these rivers, cuts through sand
bluffs and is partly blocked by a bar extending
part way across the mouth from the east. The
town of about a dozen houses is perched on
the western bank with a setting of dark spruce
forest.
The bay of Seven Islands is of great beauty
and forms a nearly circular basin some four
miles in diameter, and almost completely land-
locked. Seven mountainous islands, of which
the highest is Great Boule, block the entrance,
rising abruptly from the water to a height of
500 to 700 feet, granitic, rounded, glacier-
smoothed, yet well forested in places with dark
spruces. The birch trees, bare and leafless
37
A LABRADOR SPRING
when we steamed east along the coast, were in
full leaf on our return, and dotted the dark
forest with light green spots.
On the extreme left of the bay, as one faces
north, under some hills which match the islands
in height, was a clearing on the edge of the for-
est, occupied by the motley buildings of a whale
factory, a familiar sight to one who has been
on the eastern Labrador coast or in Newfound-
land. A little further in the bay was a wharf
piled with bales of white wood-pulp, which had
been brought by rail from Clark City lying
concealed in the forest some nine miles inland.
This " city " is a model one in many ways,
steam-heated and electric lighted, although its
effect on the forest is not pleasant to contem-
plate, yet I was told that proper forestry meth-
ods were employed, so that the land was not
left entirely destitute, and the continued
growth of the forest was assured. From the
wharf the bay sweeps around in a lovely even
curve of white sand beach, backed by the eter-
nal spruce forest, which stretches back to a
mountain barrier. This bay is of interest to
the ornithologist from the fact that thousands
of brant rest and feed on the eel-grass there
38
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT
every spring, preparatory to their flight over-
land of 500 miles across the broad isthmus to
Hudson Bay. Their migration does not stop
here, for they continue on to the far north, as
they are not known to nest south of the 83d
degree. This migration takes place between
the last week of May and the first two or three
weeks of June, and as we traversed the bay
going east on May 24th, and returned on June
22d, we missed the migration almost entirely, al-
though we obtained from several hunters and
Indian-traders a very satisfactory description
of it. We did see, however, one laggard brant
hurriedly flying north across the bay on June
22d, the last of the mighty throngs that had
preceded him.
Jacques Cartier visited this beautiful bay in
1539. One can imagine what his sensations
must have been as he sailed day after day up
this mighty gulf and river, entering as he
thought the direct waterway to the mysterious
East. Sir Humphrey Gilbert wrote in Hakluyt's
Voyages: " Jacques Cartier . . . heard say at
Hochelaga in Nova Francia how that there
was a great sea at Saguinay, whereof the end
was not knowen: which they presupposed to
39
A LABRADOR SPRING
be the passage to Cataia." Beyond Carder's
farthest west lay China, and the rapids above
Montreal bear the name La-Chine even to the
present day.
In an ancient " Discourse of divers Voyages "
it is said that " Many haue traualed to search
the coast of the lande of Labrador, as well to
thintente to knowe howe farre or whyther it
reachethe, as also whether there bee any passage
by sea throughe the same into the Sea of Sur
and the Islandes of Maluca, which are under the
Equinoctial line: thinkynge that the waye
thyther shulde greatly bee shortened by this
vyage." Sebastian Cabot had in truth " a great
flame of desyre " increased in his heart " to
attempt some notable thynge " when he heard
that " Don Christopher Colonus, Genuese, had
discovered the coastes of India, whereof was
great talke in all the courte of kynge Henry the
Seunth, who then reigned : in so much that all
men with great admiration affirmed it to bee
a thynge more diuine then humane, to sayle
by the Weste into the East where spices growe,
by a way that was never knowne before."
Cartier said that the Indians described some
marvellous fishes that lived in the Bay of Seven
40
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT
Islands, which " had the shape of horses, spend-
ing the night on land and the day in the sea."
Lescarbot, writing in 1609, says these fishes
were " hippopotami." These explorers were
not romancing, but doubtless referred to wal-
ruses, which in those days occurred even in this
southern region.
There are many interesting names connected
with the early history of Labrador. The Cabots,
John and his son Sebastian, take of course
first place in 1498, and the Portuguese, Caspar
Corte-Real is a close second in 1500. In later
days two names that are not usually connected
with Labrador appear. Louis Jolliet, the dis-
coverer of the Mississippi, was an explorer of
the Labrador coast in the latter part of the
i yth century, and he died there about 1700.
He married one of the daughters of Sieur Bissot
de la Riviere, and became involved in the end-
less disputes about the seignory of Mingan.
A still more unexpected name to stumble upon
in Labrador annals is that of the renowned cir-
cumnavigator, Captain Cook. In 1759, four
years after entering the navy, he was engaged
in making a chart of the St. Lawrence, and in
1764 he received a commission as marine sur-
41
A LABRADOR SPRING
veyor of Newfoundland and Labrador, in which
" arduous service he continued until the winter
of 1767."
To return to our own voyage : on the right
hand or easterly extremity of the Bay of Seven
Islands, in a narrow line between the white
beach in front and the dark forest behind,
stretches the town of the same name. The
small houses all looked thrifty, brightly painted
in white or gray with dark blue or red roofs,
dominated by a large priests' house and a church
with a tin-covered spire and a red roof. At the
left hand end of the town is the Indian village
with its smaller houses and church and numer-
ous tall flagstaffs, and beyond is the Hudson's
Bay Company's Post with H. B. C. in large
letters on the roof of the store.
In May the larger fishing boats were still for
the most part drawn up on the sand, but, as
soon as the steamer came to anchor a mile or so
from the shallow beach, a crowd of smaller
boats and canoes raced for her. In one of the
latter with an Indian was the Hudson's Bay
Company's factor, Dr. Ross. The steamer was
soon boarded by a picturesque and weather-
beaten crowd, and the usual excitement of the
42
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT
brief exchange of mail, news and merchandise
prevailed. It reminded me of similar occasions
on the eastern Labrador coast, but the French
language and a certain French love of dress
added a peculiar charm to this more southern
region. One man, who had given rather more
than the usual care to his apparel, appeared in
tall yellow boots and yellow riding gloves with
tassels, a high starched collar and a purple
necktie. His pointed waxed moustaches gave
the finishing Parisian touch to the picture.
Behind the town the forest stretches to the
range of low mountains which extend in a rocky
wall from east to west parallel with the coast.
This rocky barrier, the beginning of the high
land of the interior, stretches along the entire
southern coast that we visited from Seven
Islands to Natashquan. In places it recedes
many miles from the sea as at Natashquan,
where a coastal plain of thirty or forty miles
intervenes ; in other places it reaches the coast,
as at Magpie. At the Moisie River it is four-
teen miles from the sea, and at Mingan only
three miles away. At Seven Islands, although
the main range is several miles back of the head
of the bay, a rocky spur comes to the sea at the
43
A LABRADOR SPRING
western extremity of the bay, and forms the
various mountainous islands that block its
mouth. Everywhere the ridge stands up as an
impressive rocky barrier to the view from 600
to 1,000 feet in height, attaining in some places,
as at Mount St. John, a few hundred feet more
of altitude. This mountain is entered on the
charts as 1,476 feet in height. Low, the Cana-
dian geologist, states that several of the sum-
mits in this belt are more than 2,500 feet above
sea-level, and Hind found some of the mountain
ranges about the Moisie River to be 3,000 feet
high.
The top of the ridge, although nearly level,
presents rounded gaps, through which higher
mountains can be seen. To the west of the
Moisie River the mountains are wooded to their
summits, while to the east of this point they
stand up as barren rocky ridges, clothed here
and there only with patches of forest growth.
During the early part of our visit, snow was
plentiful in the ravines, but it grew less towards
the end of June. Everywhere this ridge in-
vited and mocked us, and we longed to reach
it, and explore its rocky fastnesses. Its barren
appearance like that of the rocky hills further
44
THE BARRIER MOUNTAIN RIDGE BACK OF MINGAN SHOWING POISED BOULDER.
HUDSON S BAY POST OF MINGAN. MOUNTAIN RIDGE IN THE DISTANCE.
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT
north, and so characteristic of the eastern
Labrador coast, suggested arctic conditions,
and we had visions of arctic birds breeding
there, of horned larks and pipits and possibly
of ptarmigans. At Esquimaux Point we made
our longest trip inland, a laborious tussle with
the bog for five hours, yet we found ourselves
apparently no nearer the mountains than at
the start. According to Low the range is here
twenty miles from the shore.
At Mingan, however, the approach to the
high land is short and easy. A three mile paddle
up the swift but smooth waters of the Mingan
River brings one to the foot of the barrier, up
which an Indian portage path leads to Manitou
Lake, high up in the rocky wilderness. Not un-
til the last day of our stay at Mingan were we
able to take this trip, and it was well worth
taking, as it solved many questions we had
previously asked ourselves. The first discovery
we made was that there were traces of forest
growth even on the tops of the ridges, as
shown by stumps and trunks of considerable
size. All of these, although for the most part
smoothed and bleached by long exposure to
the weather, showed in their crevices and in-
45
A LABRADOR SPRING
tenors the black marks of fire. The ranges
beyond, still higher for no matter how high
we climbed on the elevated plateau there were
always summits beyond still higher showed
also gaunt trunks, and in places a considerable
growth of birch and aspen where there had
probably been a previous growth of spruce.
Here was an explanation for the absence
of arctic birds. The region was not arctic, al-
though from a distance it simulated it perfectly.
It had originally been clothed with a forest
in which forest birds had dwelt. Mr. J. A.
Wilson, the factor of the H. B. C. at Mingan,
told me that a great fire had swept over this
region forty years ago, starting hundreds of
miles inland at the Grand or Hamilton River;
it had reached the Gulf shore with a front over a
hundred miles broad. Hind gives the dates of
several great fires before this. Not only was
the forest destroyed, but the undergrowth of
bushes, the low herbs, and more important still,
the mosses and lichens as well as the peaty soil
were all licked up by the flames, exposing the
naked framework of bed-rock and boulder.
This soil destroyed represented the disintegrat-
ing work of water in its solid and liquid form,
46
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT
and of vegetation working through thousands
of years on the solid Laurentian rock that had
been left naked and scoured by the ice of the
last glacial period. The remains of this soil, the
precious product of so many years, no longer
protected by vegetation on the steep slopes,
was soon washed down into the valleys, and
these rocky hills are now almost as devoid of
soil as they were when the glaciers melted.
On the bare rock lichens are again growing
and disintegration is gradually creeping on
even there ; in the crevices the mosses and the
herbs and bushes are striving to gain a foot-
hold, and slowly a soil is being formed, which
after many, many years will be sufficient for the
re-growth of the Hudsonian forest of spruce
and balsam. Verily what a great destruction
a little fire kindleth! The mills of the gods
grind slowly indeed in this case !
Here at a height of five or six hundred feet
glacial boulders abounded, many of them poised
on slopes of such an angle that a touch seemed
all that was needed to disturb their equilibrium
and send them crashing into the valley below.
The presence of these boulders shows that the
land here had never been submerged below the
47
A LABRADOR SPRING
sea since the departure of the ice-sheet from
the country. Elsewhere in the lowlands between
this rocky barrier and the sea, there was every-
where evidence of previous submersion, and
poised glacial erratics were absent. The rocks
on which these boulders lay were in some places
as smooth and polished as if the glaciers had
but just receded, and grooves and scratches
could easily be made out.
As in the plains the hollows are being gradu-
ally filled with vegetation, and the water ousted
or rather absorbed into the meshes. At a point
in these mountains where I sat a narrow tarn
of dark blue water lay at my feet, encroached
upon from the north by the sphagnum bog.
Beyond lay a bog in a broader, larger depres-
sion between the rocks, a bog still incomplete,
for here and there were small circular ponds.
On the other side a still larger bog was to be
seen covering entirely what was originally a
lake, and no spot of water remained. One must
not suppose that these regions were altogether
desolate. Far from it. Great patches of bril-
liant rhodora, varying in shade from light pink
to dark crimson or purple, illuminated the hill-
sides. Laurels and other members of the
48
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT
hardy heath family, dwarf cornels and bake-
apple flowers were everywhere in profusion.
To match these brilliant colours, a Wilson's
warbler in dress of lemon yellow with a shining
black cap sang from an alder thicket in the
shelter of some rocks, while a full plumaged
purple finch called my attention to himself
by a rapturous flight song, which he repeated
again and again as he fluttered upward, and
made me believe I had never heard a purple
finch sing so sweetly before.
While the view to the north was barred by a
succession of rounded mountain tops, stretching
up gradually towards the interior of the Labra-
dor peninsula which, according to Low, varies
from i, 600 to i, 800 feet in height, the view to
the south showed the great coastal plain with
its bogs and lakes and forests, its sandy shores
and winding rivers, its fringe of limestone
islands, forested and still bearing here and there
patches of pure white snow, the sparkling blue
sea, and in the distance the blue outline of
Anticosti. When this coast was submerged in
the distant past so that the sea washed the bases
of this granite barrier and entered into the
deep valleys, a shore line similar to that of the
49
A LABRADOR SPRING
present eastern coast must have been formed,
with its numerous outlying islands, its deep
fiords or "tickles," and its land-locked har-
bours.
Beyond Seven Islands stretches a long beach,
and, cutting through high sand and gravel
banks, the dark brown waters of the Moisie
River pour into the Gulf. Here the steamer
anchored two miles or more from the shore,
and we had a chance to study the little village
of a dozen red-roofed houses and a church
with our glasses during the slow process of
landing salmon casks on the beach. Moisie is
a great salmon station and the owners of the
mail steamer, the Holliday Brothers, catch in
nets great quantities of this fish every spring.
Again the beach stretched eastward, backed
by an elevated gravel plain, mostly spruce cov-
ered and edged with a pure white bank of snow.
The sea was like glass, and we were treated to
some near views of three whales. Two crossed
our bow and spouted close at hand, displaying
light gray backs; another swam lazily along
on our starboard side, showing a broad upper
jaw and long narrow dorsal fin. Off the Sag-
uenay we had seen numbers of white whales,
50
THE BEST HUNTER OF THE TRIBE, JUST BACK FROM THE NORTHWEST RIVER.
A MONTAGNAIS COUPLE AT MINGAN.
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT
whose snowy forms contrasted well with the
dark water. Once we had seen a burgomaster
or glaucous gull of snowy whiteness fly above
one of these, as it came to the surface, both
white creatures looking perhaps for the same
prey. Later in the harbour of Mingan we had
watched some small whales sporting about,
followed by a flock of twenty or more common
terns, who screamed and darted down at the
water whenever a whale appeared.
The effect of the absence of wind on the
loons which dotted the surface of the water was
interesting. This bird is a powerful and swift
flyer when he once gets under way, but as his
wings are rather small in proportion to his
body, it is almost impossible for him to rise
above a flat surface without the aid of the wind
to oppose his aeroplanes. Out of twenty or
thirty loons disturbed by the steamer that
afternoon only two succeeded in rising from the
water. The others attempted to rise, and
struggled along with both wings and feet strik-
ing the water, going off from the steamer like
meteors at tangents, and leaving wakes like
boats. After a longer or shorter time, a
quarter of a .minute to a minute as a rule, al-
51
A LABRADOR SPRING
though one greatly terrified fellow kept up the
flopping for three and three quarters min-
utes by the watch, they would give up the
struggle and dive, and their subaqueous de-
parture was probably more rapid than their
amphibious one. They reminded me of children
who are able to walk fairly well, but, when terri-
fied, forget their acquired art and return to a
primitive scramble on all fours. Diving by
loons, like walking on the hind legs by man,
is an art of comparatively late development.
On this same 23d of May, as we steamed east
from Moisie, many flocks of old squaws or
long-tailed ducks flew about us, or, rising from
the water, mounted to a considerable height
and flew hither and thither as if they had not
yet made up their minds which way to go next.
In all there must have been over a thousand
of these beautiful ducks. The distance and
the noise of the steamer prevented our hearing
their voices, but they were doubtless as garru-
lous as usual, and from their talkativeness
they derive their names " old squaw." On
the eastern Labrador coast they are called
" hounds," a very appropriate name, for at
a distance, their voices sound like those of a
52
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT
pack of hounds in full cry. It is an interesting
and musical cry, and some of their expressions
may be represented by the syllables ong-hic,
and a-ond-a-lou. The Indians call these ducks
cock-a-wee, a name doubtless suggested by
some of their conversational calls. Now as we
did not see any more old squaws farther east,
and as there were none to be found here on our
return, we concluded, and this conclusion
was confirmed by the reports of hunters along
the coast, that the old squaws like the brant
migrate north over the isthmus of the Labrador
Peninsula.
The sun set that night in a cloudless sky, cold,
clear, golden yellow, and the glow in the north-
west was very slow in fading. The twilights
are long and beautiful in these regions.
Issuing from a dark ravine the Riviere
Blanche pours its white cataract of waters
almost directly into the sea, and in the distance
in the forest the mist arising from the great falls
of the Manitou River can be seen. The next
stop was made by the steamer at Grand or
Sandy River, a desolate rocky and sandy spot
where a score of unpainted houses and a small
gray church cling desperately to their mooring.
53
A LABRADOR SPRING
and appreciated him. Now one day there
passed along this road a stranger on the march
for the Hudson's Bay Post of Mingan, an elderly
man of timid disposition, and ignorant of the
customs of the Magpie ox, and indeed not
familiar with any horned cattle.
As he approached the bridge that crosses
the river near the cascade, he perceived the ox
grazing by the roadside, and quickened his
pace, for he did not relish such close proximity
to a great beast with long horns, and these
with such sharp points. Our friend the ox
stops grazing and steps out rather quickly
in order to say bon jour, so to speak, to the
traveller. He, poor man, starts to run to es-
cape what he believes to be an animal with
vicious intentions, and to his terror the beast
runs after him. Away they go, faster and
faster, down the hill towards the bridge. Just
before reaching this point, the road turns
sharply to the left at the river's brink. The
man, terrified as he is, has enough wits left to
take the turn successfully, and gains the bridge,
but the ox in the ardour of his desire for social
intercourse, and the slowness of his mind and
of his huge bulk, is unable to turn quickly
56
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT
enough, but crashes through the single rail
over the bank down down down
like a plongeur into the Magpie River.
The good man relieved of the pursuit of this
ravenous beast, but trembling like a leaf in
every limb, tells his beads and gives thanks to
the bon Dieu. Across the bridge he goes, but
he is suddenly struck stiff with horror at the re-
appearance of the ox, who, having arisen from
his plunge, like a veritable plongeur that he is,
has swum the river and clambered out on the
rocks of the opposite shore.
At this point in the story the trader, like a
good raconteur, suddenly ceased his tale with
arms wide spread and an expression of horror
in his face. None of us asked what happened
next, but he confidentially assured me on the
following day that the story was entirely and
exactly true.
The St. John River,, about a hundred miles
from Seven Islands, is the next stopping point,
and, while we anchored, boats with red sails
came out to greet us. The town is built on
the lowest of three sandy terraces on the right
bank of the great river, which is blocked at
the mouth by a sand-bar extending half way
57
A LABRADOR SPRING
across from the east, behind which are shel-
tered the fishing boats. Back of the little vil-
lage with its faded pink church was a great
cross on the bleak hillside, and in the distance,
about a dozen miles from the sea, Mount
St. John, looking as if it had split open and
fallen apart, stood up blue and snow flecked.
Again more beach and Long Point was
reached, a flat sandy place, a not inconsiderable
village abounding in fishing boats, but destitute
of a harbour. Some of the houses were of logs,
others clapboarded and neatly painted pea-
green, yellow or slate with red roofs. There
were two churches, a large new one evidently
to replace the old one. Behind stretched the
eternal forest of pointed firs and spruces, and
the grim barrier of rock, blue, gray and white,
brought up the rear. Men pushed out through
the surf to meet the steamer, while boys and
mongrel dogs waited on the beach. About
six miles off Long Point on one of the Perro-
quet islands is a lighthouse.
The Perroquets were formerly the nesting-
places of countless puffins, razor-billed auks
and gannets. Now these birds are all gone ex-
cept a few pairs of puffins and possibly a razor-
58
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT
billed auk or two. Lucas, who visited the
islands in 1887, found "a few Gannets in
spite of the incessant persecution of the Indians
who regularly make a clean sweep there."
The persecution continued and no gannets have
nested there for fifteen years. The birds have
a sentimental attachment for the spot, how-
ever, and visit it every year, and on June 2ist
we saw about thirty of these splendid birds fly-
ing near the island.
Of an entirely different character from the
forlorn little villages we had passed was the
trig settlement of Mingan, some six miles be-
yond Long Point, protected from the sea by
a wooded island which shelters a deep sound.
The dominating feature here was the Hudson's
Bay Company's Post neatly fenced and painted
as all these posts are. This was flanked on the
west by the Indian village, and on the east by
the substantial house of a salmon fisherman,
where we made our home during the latter part
of June for a week.
While the Seven Islands are granitic, and
rise steeply to rounded summits, the group of
Mingan Islands which begins off Long Point at
the Perroquets and extends for fifty miles to St.
59
A LABRADOR SPRING
Genevieve Island are flat-topped and com-
posed of light gray limestone, whose strata
are nearly horizontal but dip slightly to the
west and south. These islands vary in size
from those of an acre or two in extent like the
Perroquets, which rise but a few feet above the
water, to those of ten or fifteen miles in cir-
cumference, like Esquimaux Island, with cliffs
seventy-five or one hundred feet high.
All display the effect of the wear of the ocean
on the limestone cliffs, which are often hollowed
and turreted in a curious manner. In places
great caverns are formed by the waves; in
others rounded pillars are the predominant
features, and, owing to the varied resistance
of the strata, these pillars sometimes assume
strange shapes. If the harder layers are in the
middle, the pillars become worn above and be-
low, and a series of spinning-top shaped masses
line the shore. In other places, where the
denser layers are on top, the wear results in
toadstool forms which sometimes extend for
considerable distances along the water front.
In many ways these limestones reminded me
of the water-worn ice formation seen on the
eastern Labrador coast.
60
TOADSTOOL-SHAPED LIMESTONE ROCKS AT ESQUIMAUX ISLE.
INDIAN MOTHER AND CHILD AT MINGAN.
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT
In other places the immediate shore is a
flat shelf of limestone, smoothed, polished and
grooved by the glaciers of long ago. Many of
these grooves are shallow, rounded depres-
sions several yards wide, extending south into
the sea, and slightly sloping in that direction.
So smooth and uniform are these shelves, that
they would make perfect slips for whale fac-
tories ; all that is needed is a tackle on the land,
a whale in the water, and the thing is complete.
In some places, however, this fresh polished
surface is marred by numerous little hollows
which suggest selective solvent power of water
on some of the ingredients of the stone. In
other places the limestone is cracked and broken
off in square blocks suitable for house building,
or in smaller fragments making pebbly beaches.
As the islands are all alike in a way, a de-
scription of Esquimaux Island, which we fre-
quently visited from the village of Esquimaux
Point, will do for all. This island is separated
by a sound three quarters of a mile wide from
Esquimaux Point, and is of irregular outline
with numerous deep bays. On June 3d we had
a splendid opportunity to study the limestone
formations of the island, for we walked around
61
A LABRADOR SPRING
its entire coast line, and concluded that al-
though the island was only about three miles in
diameter, its periphery with all the sinuosities
measured at least fifteen miles. My friend be-
lieves the distance is much greater, and as we
walked without stopping the last four hours,
after we had already gone a considerable part
of the way, I am inclined to think he is right.
Granite rocks are soft in comparison with these
hard, marble-like limestones, and the effect
on my hob-nailed shoes was disastrous. It was
hard walking, and I was reminded of the saying,
" Hit hisn't the 'unting that 'urts the 'oss,
hit's the 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer on the 'ard
'igh way.'*
The cliffs on the eastern end of the island
are particularly fine, and in one of the inacces-
sible hollows an ancient nest of a raven was to
be seen, made up of a multitude of weather-
worn sticks piled up and woven together to a
mass the size of a clothes basket. Although the
ravens were said to breed there every year, we
saw no signs of them on our visits. It was evi-
dent, however, that a few black guillemots or
sea pigeons were nesting in the deep crevices
of these cliffs, for they often flew out on our
62
TO ESQUIMAUX POINT
approach and swam nervously about in the
water outside. Everywhere the water was
dotted with eider ducks.
The centre of the island consists of tangled
forests and sphagnum bogs, and differs in no
ways from the character of the mainland. On
the borders of the bog-pools, eiders and great
black-backed gulls were generally resting, their
striking black and white plumage contrasting
well with the vegetation. One could easily
spend a whole summer on this one island, and
not discover all its secrets.
63
CHAPTER III
AN ACADIAN VILLAGE
" Where a few villagers on bended knees
Find solace which a busy world disdains."
Wordsworth.
TN the year 1605 a small party of French-
men with their wives and children came
from the western part of France, from Rochelle,
Santonge and Poiteau, to establish homes for
themselves in the new world. They settled
in what is now known as Nova Scotia, but
which came to be known in those days as Aca-
dia, and the French settlers, who thrived and
spread to New Brunswick, Cape Breton, Prince
Edward Island and the Magdalens, as Acadians.
Because these people are generally pictured
as a happy, pastoral race, one is apt to suppose
that the name Acadia is a corruption of Ar-
cadia, but this is not the case, for it is derived
from a word-ending of the Micmac Indian lan-
guage, meaning " the place of " or " region of,"
and was used as a suffix by these Indians in
64
AN ACADIAN VILLAGE
numerous names of places. The name has also
been derived from the Indian Aquoddie, mean-
ing the fish called a pollock.
The deportation of the Acadians from Nova
Scotia in 1755 is well known, and is familiar
to all from Longfellow's poem of Evangeline.
About a hundred years later, namely in 1857,
Ferman Boudrot, an Acadian from the Magda-
len Islands, sought to establish a home at Es-
quimaux Point on the southern Labrador coast,
and his example was so contagious that in 1861,
when Hind visited the place, there were already
forty Acadian families settled there. Now there
is a little village of some one hundred and
twenty houses, a substantial church with a
steeple and a priests' house.
That La Pointe aux Esquima uxde La Cote
du Nord is peopled by those of French descent is
obvious, for, as Thomas Hood used to say, even
the little children speak French such as it
is a patois which always suggested to me that
the language of Paris had been chewed and
partially swallowed. However, if my knowledge
of the French language had been greater, I
should doubtless have recognized traces of the
ancient dialects of the parts of France from
65
A LABRADOR SPRING
which the Acadians came, and the French lan-
guage of the sixteenth century. The little
children shrugged their shoulders delightfully,
and said s' paw as cleverly as their elders. Now
s'paw is merely a contraction of je ne sais pas,
and corresponds to " I dunno," or to the more
forcible " search me " used by our friend the
Yankee painter. Only the doctor and the store-
keeper as far as I could discover spoke English
in this place.
The continued use of the French tongue by a
people living under the English flag, extending
through so many generations, is interesting
and is found not only in out of the way places
like this little village, but also in a city of the
size of Quebec, where one sees the words " mai-
son a loue " placed above " house to let." The
French and English appear as difficult to mix as
oil and water. That a certain amount of as-
similation, however, has taken place is shown in
the use of the word potdtes instead of pomme
de terre, and in the incorporation of various
terms used in connection with navigation. For
example, " heave tranquilement " and " heave
le slack away," and " go ahead un pen " were
orders which arrested my attention on the
66
AN ACADIAN VILLAGE
French steamer that plied along the coast.
The sign " Passagers are not admit on Foot-
bridge " showed a recognition of the existence
of English-speaking people, and a desire to
reconcile the two languages.
As the people of Esquimaux Point are all
fisher-folk, their houses are strung along the
shore so as to be in close touch with the pas-
tures of the sea from which the harvest is
gathered. Each family lived in a picturesque
little house, and, as they all were very similar
in appearance, one description will do for all.
They were of wood neatly painted in white or
gray with dark coloured roofs, their greatest
charm, aside from the little dormer windows,
being the graceful up-curve at the eaves, a
universal characteristic. The windows all in one
piece appeared to be permanently sealed, but
as June advanced the winter fastenings of
some were withdrawn, and they were opened
to the air. Plaster was not used in the con-
struction of these houses indeed only two
plastered houses did we find along this Labra-
dor coast but the generous wood-piles and
the stoves made to burn half a dozen long logs
at once gave an idea of the warmth to be
67
A LABRADOR SPRING
found in these thin-walled houses even in
mid -winter.
The firmly closed windows of these houses
reminded me of a former experience on the
eastern Labrador coast. My companion and I
occupied an 8 by 10 room, and, being peculiar,
felt it essential to have the window open. This
was not easily accomplished for the window,
either through lack of practice or because it
was not intended to be opened, was almost as
immovable as the rocks on which the house was
built. However, we at last managed to raise it
far enough to insert our arms in the crack, and
then, with a heave all together, we succeeded
in wedging it up about eighteen inches,
enough to let the fresh air blow in and the fog.
When we left, my friend remarked that they
would have some difficulty in closing that
window, and as we stopped at the same house
on our return from the north, I was amused
to see that his prophecy was correct, for there
were marks of blows on the window-frame
and an axe was in the corner. The axe stood
us in good stead in opening the window again.
Dr. Grenfell's hardest work is to teach the Lab-
radorians the value of fresh air inside their
68
AN ACADIAN VILLAGE
houses. It is said that Newfoundland owes
the purity of its air to the fact that the in-
habitants keep their doors and windows tightly
closed, and it seems probable that Labrador
owes its wonderful atmosphere to the same
cause.
The church with its steeple and the priests'
house were of ample proportions, well painted
and prosperous looking, and timber was being
hauled for a new convent to replace the one
recently burned. In the convent the youth of
the region is instructed by the good sisters. Sev-
eral large crosses were placed at various points in
the village and a crucifix was in the little burial
ground. From the eastern extremity of the
town to the church, a distance of over a mile,
a long, narrow, well fenced lane stretched
parallel with the beach, and in this lane a few
cattle always wandered. One of these was
familiarly known to my friend and myself
as " Paul Potter's bull " from his resemblance
to that celebrated animal, but his familiarity
with the human race at close quarters had
rendered his disposition so amiable that we
soon lost our instinctive fear of him. The
object of the high fences on either side of the
69
A LABRADOR SPRING
narrow lane, fences sometimes consisting of
seven or eight bars, was to keep the cattle
from the little garden plots of which each
house boasted.
The first of June appeared to be the begin-
ning of the spring season with the agricultural-
ists of Esquimaux Point, for at this date the
tilling of the gardens began. With the aid of
broad bladed mattocks, deep furrows were made
in the dark peaty and sandy soil, the women
working side by side with the men, if haply
these latter were not engaged with their boats,
and the familiar pictures of French peasantry
were at once suggested. The soil is enriched
with dark, strong-smelling seaweed brought by
boats from the islands, and the seeds planted ;
turnips and cabbages, salads, radishes and pota-
toes were the chief crops. The rhubarb was just
beginning at this date to peep above the
ground.
Near the houses large black pots were often
hung for the purpose of washing clothes, and
a few open air ovens were to be seen, although
the modern stoves had almost entirely crowded
out these picturesque relics of the past.
The fourth of June seemed to be an es-
70
AN ACADIAN VILLAGE
pecially busy day in this community ; agricul-
tural operations in the little house plots were
in full progress, and the farmers were generally
of the female gender, although boys as well as
girls assisted their mothers, who, in short,
woollen skirts, with bright handkerchiefs about
their necks or on their heads, were labouring
with mattocks to complete the work. The
men were busy painting their houses or boats,
which, drawn up on the beach out of the reach
of the storms, had weathered the long winter
under thatches of balsam boughs. New
rigging was being installed, new spars were
trimmed, nets and sails were spread out to
mend, and the whole place showed an air of
great bustle and activity. From time to time
the men would leave their own work to gather
in numbers to assist a neighbour to launch his
boat.
One very enterprising man had already been
out to fish, and had brought back the first
cod of the season, his small boat half filled
with them. A group of men surrounded the
boat on the beach to talk over the exciting
event after the long winter. It was all good
fun. Our friend the Yankee, and Yankees
71
A LABRADOR SPRING
are not slow in talking, said he never saw
people with so much to say to each other. If
they meet after two hours' absence, he said, they
jabber away as if they had not seen each other
for months. For example, he had watched six
men shingling the roof of the doctor's house,
and they were talking so hard that only semi-
occasionally was a nail driven. A couple of
Yankees, he was sure, could have done the
work in half the time but this perhaps was
merely spread-eagleism.
At all events, the people seemed to be enjoy-
ing themselves and to be looking forward with
pleasure to the short three or four months'
fishing season after the long winter. The
winter is the season of wood-cutting, of visiting
and of travelling along the icy pathway of the
coast on dog-sleds, while the summer is devoted
to fishing, and about 150 sails hail from Esqui-
maux Point. The summer is their season of
work, the winter they call play.
The boats, like the houses, are all of the same
type. Each boat was about thirty feet in
length, pointed at both ends and schooner-
rigged with two masts, although the jib and a
bowsprit were often lacking. Picturesque
72
PREPARATIONS Ft>R THE FISHING SEASON,
AN ACADIAN VILLAGE
boats they were, especially when the sails were
dyed a light pink or terra cotta red to preserve
them from the weather. About the middle of
June they all depart for the cod fishing banks
off Natashquan, and they return with their
cargoes of dried and salted fish about the
middle of July, to begin the deep-sea fishing
eight or ten miles off the home port, a season
that lasts two or three months more. Hand
lines only are used, which leave their impress
in deep grooves on the sides of the boats. Net
traps, so universal on the eastern coast of
Labrador, are not allowed here.
The scene in the village and on the beach
at this time was always interesting and pic-
turesque. One man in the hurry of his work
had pressed a small cow into service; she was
dragging a tiny cart loaded with ropes and nets
down to his boat on the beach, while he dra-
matically strode on ahead.
Religion takes a prominent place in the lives
of these people. The church bells ring out
many times a day to summon them to prayer,
and to prayer they go, not the women and
children merely as in some communities and
some faiths, but men too unless they are absent
73
A LABRADOR SPRING
at their duties. These bells, which were
11 jangled, out of tune and harsh," so inter-
fered at times with my observation of small
birds, whose notes I was trying to detect, that
I was often tempted to say " Silence that
dreadful bell: it frights the isle from her
propriety."
As the village is a village of fishermen, it is
appropriate that St. Peter should be its patron
saint, and that a large tin fish perforated with
the name of St. Pierre should swim as a weather-
vane on a mast in the church yard, and that
St. Peter's cock, very fat and of considerable
height, should act as a vane on a large cross at
the end of the town. Still more appropriate
is the painting over the altar in the church of
the miraculous draught of fishes, where the
boats are such as might be used at the present
day on this stormy coast, and the details of
pointed sterns and thole-pins have a familiar
look. The painting, a copy of one by Tissot,
is the work of a self-taught native, and is
remarkably well done in soft and harmonious
colours. Doubtless many a sturdy worshipper,
while his lips moved in prayer as he counted his
beads, has envied the success of this draught,
74
AN ACADIAN VILLAGE
and has instinctively calculated its weight and
value, for one can easily count the fishes, -
they are very accurately done and are not
painted in the impressionist style. I was very
glad that it rained hard one Sunday morning,
so that I should not be tempted afield, and I
went to church for the principal service. As
the bells jangled from the steeple, mine host
led me up the front steps which were crowded
with men, who politely touched their hats
and made way for us as we entered the church.
Up the main aisle I meekly followed my guide,
feeling the penetrating gaze of all the congre-
gation fixed upon me. With a flourish I was
given the front pew and left to my meditations.
The vacant places in the pews must have been
soon filled, I imagined, as I did not at first dare
to look back of me, for I could hear the stamp-
ing of heavy boots as the crowd of men filed
into the church at the last moment. When I did
summon up courage to look around, I was
impressed with the black clothes of the wor-
shippers, the brilliant sweaters, dresses and
handkerchiefs of the workaday life had van-
ished, to be replaced in the women by black
caps and black dresses, and in the men by coats,
75
A LABRADOR SPRING
which, although often weather-beaten to a
lighter hue, were evidently intended to be
black. In the gallery near at hand was a row
of a dozen little girls, among them my friends
Lalouise and Yvonne, each with her black
eyes uninterruptedly fixed on the strangers
in the front pew. As I cast surreptitious
glances about the church from time to time, I
could not help noticing the similarity in type
between these sturdy Acadians and the peas-
antry of France with whose forms and faces
modern French art has made us so familiar.
The service seemed to be very sincere and
impressive, and the ten little boys, the acolytes,
whose brown faces and hands, and whose
shocks of brown hair contrasted well with their
white vestments, each did his part well. The
sermon was on La signe de la croix, which the
good father showed was everywhere, for even
the birds in the air as they fly, and the fishes in
the sea as they swim, make the sign of the
cross. I believe I shall always remember these
words which rang out through the church at
the end of almost every sentence. I could not
help thinking as I watched the two priests
with their strong faces, their black robes and
76
AN ACADIAN VILLAGE
their brilliant vestments, of les robes noirs,
who accompanied the explorers of the seven-
teenth century in these parts, and of the ad-
miration and astonishment they caused among
the savages, for whose conversion from pagan-
ism they laboured so hard. Then the power
behind them was a mighty power in the king-
dom of France. Now they are outcasts, re-
pudiated in their own home, the French Re-
public, and are seeking liberty to practise their
religion here in the new world.
Of the present bishop of this region, Mon-
seigneur Gustave Blanche, it is said in a pam-
phlet describing his inauguration to office in 1905
that " the violent persecution of 1903 found
him at his post. Thrown on the street, like all
the clergy that an impious government could
no longer endure, he took, with a hundred of his
brethren, the road to Canada in the month of
August, 1903." J These were the Eudiste fathers,
a branch founded by Jean Eudes. Up to 1867
all the territory of Labrador was part of the
1 Translation from "Les Fetes du sacre de Mgr. Gus-
tave Blanche, eveque titulaire de Sicca, Vicarre, aposto-
lique du Golf St.-Laurent. Celebres a Chicotrtimi les 28
et 29 Octobre, 1905." Quebec, 1906.
77
A LABRADOR SPRING
diocese of Quebec, but after Rimouski was
erected into an Episcopal seat, all that im-
mense country of the north-east was detached
from Quebec and included in the new diocese,
which was called " La Prefecture apostolique
du Gulf St. -Laurent." This includes the north-
ern shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence from
Portneuf to Blanc-Sablon, and extends to the
north and east as far as Hudson and Ungava
Bay; it also includes the island of Anticosti.
Previous to 1903 it was difficult to find priests
for these isolated regions, but the difficulties
were, as the pamphlet says, removed by the
" providential banishment " of the Eudiste
fathers from France in that year and their
assumption of the work in this diocese.
The fathers certainly have most devoted
followers in this little village of Esquimaux
Point, and their piety was beautifully shown
at the celebration of the feast of Corpus Christ i,
which occurred on the last Sunday of our stay
at the place. The village was gaily decorated.
Long strings of bright flags and pennants
stretched from the church, and a long lane down
one side of the village brook, across a bridge up
the other side, and so on across another bridge
78
THE PROCESSION AT THE FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI AT ESQUIMAUX POINT.
RAISING THE HOST AT THE " REPOSITORY."
AN ACADIAN VILLAGE
to the church, had been lined with balsam fir
and spruce and birch saplings stuck in the sandy
soil and tied to fence posts. The day before,
on looking from the door of our house, I had
been startled by seeing islands of verdure ad-
vancing like Birnam wood across the sound.
The islands were boats so filled with trees that
the rowers were invisible. Flags and banners
of all shapes and colours waved gaily in the
wind along this lane and added to the joy and
beauty of the scene.
After an impressive vesper service in the
church, the whole congregation, which was in-
deed the entire community, sallied forth on the
prepared way. First came an acolyte, a sturdy,
handsome youth, bearing aloft in his strong
hands the cross, and attended by two smaller
boys bearing candles. All the acolytes were re-
splendent in scarlet cassocks and white lace
cottas. Then followed all the little children of
the village marshalled into some sort of order
by two anxious nuns, the boys in one line, the
girls in another. The image of the virgin, borne
on the shoulders of two women and attended
by little girls in the bridal dresses of their first
communion, came next. Behind followed the
79
A LABRADOR SPRING
women, young and old, many with babes in
arms. The central figure of the procession
was the priest dressed in gorgeous vestments
and bearing the host. He strode along under a
canopy supported by four sturdy fishermen, pre-
ceded by a banner, a company of men singers,
and four large candle-lanterns, raised aloft on
poles by four white-bearded men. Seven boys
in scarlet and white took their appointed
positions in the group. Behind the priest fol-
lowed the long throng of men, all bare-headed,
with whom I reverently joined.
Along the narrow, sandy lane we slowly
walked. Great solemnity, piety and adoration
of the sacred services were shown on every
face. There was no levity, no idle conversation ;
there were no lookers-on, all were participants.
The men sang, the priest intoned, the bells in
the steeple rang forth; a fox sparrow's flute-
like tones issued from the brook-side, clear and
sweet, and the holy vespers of the hermit thrush
came faintly from the distant forest. At last
we reached a turning in the lane where the
priest entered a repository, gayer still with
flags and bright pictures, images and paper
flowers, and with carpets placed about. Here,
80
AN ACADIAN VILLAGE
after a short service, the host was raised and
the prostrate people blessed. Again the journey
was continued over a little bridge to another
repository, where the same service was re-
peated. Again the church bells jangled forth,
and the procession slowly wound its way to the
bridge by the church, and so on into the sacred
edifice. Here the services were completed
with much burning of incense and music.
To even think of photographing such a holy
procession seemed sacrilegious, but on inquiring
beforehand, I had learned that the good father
would consider it a privilege if some photographs
could be obtained of such an event, as cameras
were unknown in the village. So from time to
time my friend and I slipped from the ranks of
worshippers and endeavoured to fasten on the
photographic films some records, however im-
perfect, which might remotely suggest the
simple piety and beauty of the scene.
It was with regret that I left this little Aca-
dian village with its simple, peaceful life. One
of the first settlers who had brought his family
from the Magdalen Islands is reported to have
said in reply to a question by Abb 6 Ferland
as to his reasons for leaving long-settled regions
81
A LABRADOR SPRING
for the wilderness: " The plagues of Egypt
had fallen upon us. The first three came with
bad harvests, the seigneurs, and the traders;
the remaining four arrived with the gentlemen
of the law. The moment the lawyers set their
feet upon our island there was no longer any
hope left of maintaining ourselves there." For-
tunately his animadversions were not extended
to any other profession, so I was always treated
with the politeness that is characteristic of the
race. May the simple life long continue on these
shores!
82
CHAPTER IV
THE COURTSHIPS OF SOME LABRADOR BIRDS
" Mille modi veneris."
Ovid.
A MONO the primitive races of mankind
* the male as a rule adorns himself more
than the female. He it is that rejoices more
in tattoo markings and paints, in the beauty
of the dressing of his hair and in adornments by
bright feathers. The female is modest by com-
parison and quiet in her savage apparel. Among
the lower animals this adornment in the male is,
with a few exceptions, the rule. The stag with
his great antlers is a striking object beside the
demure doe. Among the birds the contrast be-
tween the sexes is still more emphasized, and
the brilliantly coloured cock often appears to
belong to a different race from the quietly
dressed hen. The most striking contrasts are
to be seen among the famous birds of paradise
83
A LABRADOR SPRING
where the females are as dull coloured and in-
conspicuous as sparrows.
That all this is very different from the present
day fashion among civilized mankind is of
course a trite observation, but one wonders
whether the old instinct is not still present, for
men. when away from the restraints of con-
ventionality, love to adorn themselves with
striking raiment, as witness the cow-boy and the
tourist-sportsman, while it is an open question
whether men are not naturally more attracted
by the women quietly but carefully and taste-
fully dressed, than by the woman whose gar-
ments suggest the male bird of paradise. Most
women think otherwise, if we are to judge from
outward appearances, but I am inclined to think
they do not understand men, and are ignorant
of this deep, inherited taste.
One of the most marked examples of the
adornment of the male and of the quiet dress
of the female among birds is the eider, a common
and characteristic duck of this Labrador coast.
The male is indeed a striking bird; he is
a splendid duck of large proportions with a
creamy white upper breast and back. His
wings, tail, lower breast, belly and top of his
84
COURTSHIPS OF LABRADOR BIRDS
head to just below the eyes are jet black, while
the sides of his face and the back of his head are
washed with a most delicate and lovely shade
of green. Seen from the side, when he swims
on the water, the black crown, wings and tail
contrast beautifully with the general whiteness
of the rest of the plumage. From behind, the
black crown is seen to be carefully parted by a
white line in the centre, while the black wings
and tail, separated by a white division, make a
striking pattern. In flight, the black belly and
white breast are conspicuous, an arrangement
the reverse of the usual in bird colouration.
The female eider, on the other hand, effaces
herself in a garment of brown, so that she is
often invisible against the dark water, while
her mate shines forth conspicuously. One may
see at a distance a company of eiders all ap-
parently males, but on nearer approach the
company is found to contain a number of
females, which were at first invisible owing to
their plainer colouring. To their mates these
lady eiders must appear very charming, and
indeed to human eyes, the beauty of the plu-
mage of the females must be granted, for, when
seen at close range, they show most wonderful
85
A LABRADOR SPRING
pencillings of rich brown and black, and each
feather is a work of art. The dress is modesty
itself, but in richness of colouring and good
taste it cannot be excelled. In fact, as a con-
stant companion, I should prefer the richly
but modestly dressed duck to the gaudy drake,
but this, of course, is my inherited masculine
taste, a taste, however, that appears to be
shared by the drake.
That the drake is fond of the duck is evident
from the love-makings that go on in these cold
waters, and indeed the study of the courtships
of the eider was one of my greatest interests in
this Labrador spring. Everywhere we went
among the rocky islands that line the coast,
pairs and little bands of eiders abounded. We
found twenty nests on one island of a few
acres, and, on our walk around Esquimaux
Island, we must have seen at least 500 of these
beautiful birds. They were usually in pairs,
and, when flying, the female preceded, closely
followed by the male. This was certainly the
rule when the birds were flying about un-
aware of the presence of man, but; when
disturbed or frightened by his presence, I re-
gret to have to state that the male often
86
NEST OF GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL.
NEST OF EIDER DUCK.
COURTSHIPS OF LABRADOR BIRDS
flew first in his eagerness to get away from
danger. Sometimes several pairs, apparently
mated, would swim about together or rest on
the rocks close to the water, while at other
times one or two females would be surrounded
by six or eight males that were crowding about
them to win their favours.
The actual courtship of the eider, or moynak,
as it is universally known along this French-
Indian coast of Labrador, may be recognized
from afar by the love-note of the male, a note
that Cartwright likened to the cooing of the
stock-dove. To me it sounded like the syllables
aah-ou, or ah-ee-ou frequently repeated, and,
while low and pleasing in tone, its volume is so
great that it can be heard at a considerable dis-
tance over the water. On a calm day, when
there were many eiders about, the sound was al-
most constant. While the syllables aah-ou ex-
press very well the usual notes, there is much
variation in tone from a low and gentle pleading,
to a loud and confident assertion. In fact the
tones vary much as do those of the human voice,
and there is a very human quality in them, so
much so that when alone on some solitary isle,
I was not infrequently startled with the idea
87
A LABRADOR SPRING
that there were men near at hand. To all these
pleadings the female remains silent or occa-
sionally utters a low and simple ku ku ku.
But the wooer of the demure one does not
depend on his voice alone, he displays his
charms of dress to best advantage, and indulges
in well worn antics. It always seemed to me
a pity that the magnificent black lower parts
should disappear when the drake is swimming
on the water, and the bird evidently shares my
sentiments, for during courtship, he frequently
displays his black shield by rising up in front, so
that at times, in his eagerness, he almost stands
upon his tail. To further relieve his feelings,
he also throws back his head, and occasionally
flaps his wings. The movements of his head
and neck are an important part of the court-
ship, and although there is considerable varia-
tion in the order and extent of the performance,
a complete antic is somewhat as follows: the
head is drawn rigidly down, the bill resting
against the breast; the head is then raised up
until the bill points vertically upwards, and
at this time the bill may or may not be opened
to emit the love notes; after this the head is
jerked backwards a short distance still rigidly,
88
COURTSHIPS OF LABRADOR BIRDS
and then returned to its normal position. All
this the drake does swimming near the duck,
often facing her in his eagerness, while she
floats about indifferently, or at times shows her
interest and appreciation by facing him and
throwing up her head a little in a gentle imita-
tion of his force fulness. 1
Another duck whose courtship antics are
even more interesting than those of the eider is
the American golden-eye or whistler, the plan-
1 Abbott H. Thayer's statement in the Introduction to
Gerald H. Thayer's wonderfully interesting book on
" Concealing-Coloration in the Animal Kingdom " that
" This discovery that patterns and utmost contrasts of
colour (not to speak of appendages) on animals make
wholly for their ' obliteration,' is a fatal blow to the vari-
ous theories that these patterns exist mainly as nuptial
dress, warning colours, mimicry devices (t. e., mimicry of
one species by another), etc., since these are all attempts
to explain an entirely false conception that such patterns
make their wearers conspicuous** seems to me hard to
believe in the case of the male eider. I have watched this
bird on land, on water and in the air, on rocks, in bogs
and among bushes both green and brown, among icebergs
and ice floes, and, if I were a gyrfalcon intent on eider
flesh, I should not wish for a more conspicuous mark. I
can not help thinking that the brilliant orange-yellow legs
of the male golden-eye, the vivid blue lining of the mouth
of the double-crested cormorant and the wonderful black
belly-shield of the male eider are instances of the work-
ings of sexual selection.
89
A LABRADOR SPRING
geur of this coast. While the eider makes its
nest on the ground often concealed under the
grass and bushes, and lays from four to seven
large olive green eggs, which it smothers in its
own down, the whistler lays six or more pale
green eggs in a hollow tree. Of the former we
found many nests, of the latter only one, and
this was in a large hollow stub about twelve
feet from the ground on the edge of a high cliff
overlooking the sea near Esquimaux Point. In
this well chosen spot, which commanded exten-
sive views of the surrounding country and
ocean, a whistler had deposited fifteen eggs and
covered them thickly with down.
As the cliff was over a hundred feet high, the
process of transfer of the future brood from the
nest to the water would have been well worth
waiting to see, if only one had had the time.
Tree-nesting ducks have been observed to entice
the young from the hole, inducing them to drop
or flutter down into the grass or the water,
and it has been said that they sometimes fly
down carrying the young in the bill, or even
on the back. Careful observations of these last
named methods are, however, few or lacking,
and our regret at not being able to stay
90
COURTSHIPS OF LABRADOR BIRDS
and watch the process was therefore the
greater.
Although I did not observe the courtship
of the whistler in Labrador, and its extreme
shyness is probably the reason that so little
has been written on the subject, I have ob-
served it at Ipswich and Barnstable in Massa-
chusetts, and especially in the Charles River
Basin at Boston where, owing to the protection
afforded by the great city, the birds are unusu-
ally tame and unsuspicious.
The spring is of course the time when the
courtship actions are most indulged in, and they
begin in mild days in February and continue
until the departure of the birds for the north
early in April. In the autumn months, how-
ever, it is not uncommon to see the same per-
formance given both by the adults and young
males, although but incompletely carried out
in the latter case.
The courtship action varies considerably,
but a typical and complete one may be de-
scribed as follows: One or more males swim
restlessly back and forth and around a female.
The feathers of the cheeks and crest of the male
are so erected that the head looks large and
91
A LABRADOR SPRING
round, the neck correspondingly small, and as
he swims forward the head is thrust out in front
close to the water, occasionally dabbing at it.
Suddenly he springs forward elevating his
breast, and at the same time enters on the most
typical and essential part of the performance.
The neck is stretched up, and the bill, pointing
to the zenith, is opened to emit a harsh, rasping,
double note, zzee at, vibrating and searching in
character. The head is then quickly snapped
back until the occiput touches the rump, whence
it is brought forward again with a jerk to the
normal position. As the head is brought to
its place, the bird often springs forward, kicking
the water out behind, and displaying like a flash
of flame the orange coloured legs. This appears
to be the complete performance, and the female
although usually passive, sometimes responds
by protruding her head close to the water in
front, and then bringing it up so that it also
points to the zenith. Further than this, I
have not seen her go. It must be remembered
that even as late as March there are many young
males whose plumage resembles that of the
female, although the males are of larger size, yet
it is often difficult to distinguish them from the
92
COURTSHIPS OF LABRADOR BIRDS
female. That the female does take part to this
limited extent in the nuptial performance, I
have, however, convinced myself. Although
this performance is more striking than that of
the eider just related, the family resemblance
can be detected.
There are many variations of this curious
action. It may be curtailed, so that the thrust-
ing of the head up into the air alone re-
mains, or it may be limited to the upward
thrust of the head and the jerk to and from
the rump. When the birds are at such a dis-
tance that the note can not be heard, it is
impossible to say when it is emitted, but I
have observed birds close at hand go through
the performance silently. I have also seen
them thrust out the head in front in such a
way as apparently to scoop up the water and
then elevate the head, the bill pointing straight
up but closed as if they were drinking the water.
Sometimes the head is held on the rump for sev-
eral seconds before it is snapped into place.
A male after ardently performing the court-
ship actions near a female flew off with his
head low about a hundred yards. The female
swam rapidly after him with head stretched
93
A LABRADOR SPRING
close to the water, but lifted up vertically from
time to time in the courting manner, and she
soon joined her mate.
The display of the brilliant orange legs and
feet by the males is particularly interesting.
These members in the female are pale yellow
in colour, and it may be supposed that the males
have attained the more attractive orange as a
result of sexual selection. They certainly make
good use of this brilliant colour in the courtship
display, for the flash of the orange feet con-
trasting with the snowy flanks of the bird and
the dark water is extremely effective, and
noticeable even at a considerable distance. In
this connection it is interesting to note that the
legs and feet of both male and female Barrow's
golden-eye are alike pale yellow. I am not
familiar with the courtship of this bird, and as
far as I know it has never been described,
but I think it is reasonable to infer that the
display of the legs, as in the American golden-
eye, is not a part of the performance. As
the Barrow's golden-eye lacks the peculiar
localized swelling of the lower wind-pipe found
in the other species, one might suppose that
the musical part of the performance was also
94
COURTSHIPS OF LABRADOR BIRDS
lacking in their case. A study of the courtship
of this very similar yet very different bird is
much to be desired, and might throw consider-
able light on the relationships or evolution
of the two species.
There is no more unusual and bizarre sight
in the bird world than a dozen or more beautiful
whistler drakes crowding restlessly around a
few demure little females, and displaying these
antics of head, neck, and feet, while ever
and anon their curious love-song pierces the air.
At Esquimaux Point on June 2nd, as I was
standing on the rocks on the shore, I was startled
by the loud quack or croak characteristic of the
female black duck, and looking up I saw two
large black ducks, evidently males, in close
pursuit of a smaller female. They doubled and
twisted in a manner wonderful to see, as the
duck appeared to be straining every nerve to
elude the drakes. At last one of the drakes
gave up the pursuit and disappeared over the
low forest, whereupon the other drake and
duck sailed away together, as if it had all been
arranged beforehand, straight to a secluded
pool out of sight behind the rocks. The whole
affair was of short duration but very exciting
95
A LABRADOR SPRING
while it lasted, and very decisive; one of the
drakes had to be rejected.
Another water bird whose courtship I watched
on the Labrador coast was that curious indi-
vidual that compound of dignity and com-
icality the puffin. On this coast the bird
is universally known as the " perroquet," but
Sir Richard Bonnycastle in his "Newfound-
land in 1842 " justly says it " may be called
the sea-owl, from its extraordinary head and
wise look." Near Bald Island they delighted
to gather on the water in compact parties of
fifty or sixty individuals, that were constantly
moving in and out like a crowd at an afternoon
tea. Every now and then one would sit up on
the water and spread its wings, and once I
watched two fighting with flapping wings, and,
at another time, two struggling together for a
full minute with interlocked beaks. Occasion-
ally one puffin would face another, and throw
its head back with a quick jerk so that the bill
pointed vertically up, and then lower it again.
At one time I saw several birds do this, but as
the wind was strong, the water rough and the
distance considerable, my observations were
far from complete and satisfactory. Edmund
96
ENTRANCE TO PUFFIN BURROW, BALD ISLAND.
WATER WORN LIMESTONE ROCKS AT BALD ISLAND. NESTING SHELVES FOR
RAZOR-BILLED \UKS.
COURTSHIPS OF LABRADOR BIRDS
Selous, 1 who has watched sea-birds in the
Shetlands, says of the puffin: " One of the birds,
standing so as directly to face the other, will
often raise and then again lower, the head,
some eight or nine times in succession, in a half
solemn manner, at the same time opening its
gaudy beak, sometimes to a considerable ex-
tent, yet all the time without uttering a sound."
Not only is the outside of the beak gaudy in
scarlet with white and blue lines, but the inside
with its brilliant yellow lining is superlatively
so, and is probably, as Selous suggests, de-
veloped as a result of sexual selection. The
inside of the mouth of the double crested cor-
morant is a vivid blue that of the European
shag described by Selous is curiously enough a
" bright gamboge yellow " while on opening
the mouth of a black guillemot I found it to be
scarlet, All these birds open wide the beak in
courtship, according to Selous.
Among many of our smaller birds it fre-
quently happens in the height of the spring
season and in the ecstasy of their passion that
they rise into the air with rapidly fluttering
^he Bird Watcher in the Shetlands. London, 1905,
p. 246.
97
A LABRADOR SPRING
wings as they pour forth their love-song. This
happens regularly in the case of such birds as
the pipet, the horned-lark and the long-billed
marsh wren, and less regularly in the song
sparrow, oven bird, and Maryland yellow-
throat.
In these cases the slight music made by the
rapid and forcible fluttering of the wings is
wholly subordinate to the song. In the case
of the ruffed grouse on the other hand, the
music of the wings is everything, there is no
vocal music and no locomotion, for the bird
stands on a log and flutters its wings so rapidly
that a loud whirring or " drumming " sound is
made, by which the bird expresses, doubtless,
the same emotions as are expressed by the fox
sparrow with its wonderful song.
Mr. William Brewster, in his description of
a drumming grouse, says : " Suddenly he paused
and sitting down on his rump and tarsi, cross-
wise on the log, ... he stretched out his wings
stiffly at nearly right angles with the body. . , .
Now the wings were drawn slightly back, a
quick stroke given forward, at the air, and a
pulsating throb, entirely different from any
sound I have ever heard, struck my ear, pro-
98
COURTSHIPS OF LABRADOR BIRDS
ducing at such short range an almost painful
sensation: the wings were immediately re-
covered, and another stroke, a trifle quicker
than the first, was succeeded by another still
quicker, until the wings vibrated too fast to be
followed by the eye, producing the well-known
terminal roll of muffled thunder."
Although this performance is very different
from the fluttering flight of the singing bird, yet
there are two other Labrador birds that illus-
trate very well, it seems to me, the stages in its
evolution. One of these is the willow ptarmi-
gan, which, we were told came to the southern
coast in great numbers every five or six winters.
In this season the bird is snow-white with the
exception of a black tail, but in summer it is
brown and matches so well its surroundings that
it is almost impossible to see it on the ground.
In the love season it does not drum like its
cousin the ruffed grouse, neither does it sing, in
fact it tries to do both, but, as is often the case
under these circumstances, it falls between two
stools and does neither well. Mr. L. M. Turner
thus describes the nuptial performance of the
willow grouse, as he observed it in Labrador :
" In the spring these birds repair, as the snow
99
A LABRADOR SPRING
melts, to the lower grounds and prepare for the
nuptial season. About the loth of April they
may be heard croaking or barking on all sides.
A male selects a favourable tract of territory
for the location of the nest, and endeavours to
induce a female to resort to that place. He
usually selects the highest portion of the tract,
whence he launches into the air uttering a bark-
ing sound of nearly a dozen separate notes,
thence sails or flutters in a circle to alight at the
same place whence he started, or to alight on
another high place, from which he repeats
the act while flying to his former place. Imme-
diately on alighting, he utters a sound similar
to the Indian word chu-xwan (what is it?) and
repeats it several times, and in the course of
a few minutes again launches in the air."
The second stage in the evolution of the
drumming performance is illustrated by the
Canada grouse or spruce partridge, who has
developed the wing music to such an extent
that he has given up the vocal music. The
wing music, however, appears to be still some-
what dependent on flight and has not advanced
to the stage seen in the ruffed grouse, where the
wing music has become a performance in itself
100
COURTSHIPS OF LABRADOR BIRDS
and not incidental to flight. Although we saw
a number of spruce partridges in various places
on the coast, and although we watched and
listened eagerly for their nuptial performance,
we were unsuccessful. Bendire quotes the
following description of the act: " After strut-
ting back and forth for a few minutes, the male
flew straight up, as high as the surrounding
trees, about 14 feet; here he remained station-
ary an instant, and while on suspended wing
did the drumming with the wings, resembling
distant thunder, meanwhile dropping down
slowly to the spot from where he started, to
repeat the same thing over and over again."
He also quotes another description of the drum-
ming as follows: ' The Canada Grouse per-
forms its * drumming ' upon the trunk of a
standing tree of rather small size, preferably one
that is inclined from the perpendicular, and in
the following manner: Commencing near the
base of the tree selected, the bird flutters up-
ward with somewhat slow progress, but rapidly
beating wings, which produce the drumming
sound. Having thus ascended 15 or 20 feet
it glides quietly on wing to the ground and
repeats the manoeuvre."
101
A LABRADOR SPRING
Whether in the future ages the ptarmigan
will reach the stage of the spruce partridge, and
the latter that of the ruffed grouse, or whether
they will each branch out on original lines of
their own, time alone will determine, but in the
present age they represent very well different
stages in the evolution of the wonderful per-
formance of the ruffed grouse.
102
CHAPTER V
THE CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE FROM
ESQUIMAUX POINT TO NATASHQUAN
" Through the Northern Gulf and the misty screen
Of the isles of Mingan and Madeleine."
Whittier.
Labrador Coast from the base of the
Peninsula to Cape Charles at the en-
trance of the Straits of Belle Isle is nearly
600 miles in length, and from Cape Charles to
Cape Chidley at the northern extremity of the
eastern coast the distance is about 700 miles.
With a few insignificant gaps this entire coast
line of over one thousand miles is so beset with
islands that it is possible to cruise in a small
boat in protected water-ways nearly the whole
distance. One must bide one's time, however,
in the gaps, for in the Gulf of St. Lawrence as
well as on the Atlantic Coast the seas are often
of the stormiest.
At Esquimaux Point, with the kind assist-
103
A LABRADOR SPRING
ance of the government physician, Dr. Trem-
blay, we were put in touch with two good men,
Mathias and Martial, owners of a fishing-boat,
with whom we proposed to cruise along the coast
to the eastward, stopping wherever we wished
and exploring all places of interest. The boat
was like all the fishing-boats of that shore,
staunch and seaworthy, thirty feet long and
pointed at the ends like a canoe or ancient
caravel. I suppose its model dated back to
European ones, although an evolution from the
Indian canoe at once struck my fancy. The
birch canoe of the Indians in this region has
been replaced by them with one of the same
model but covered with painted canvas. The
ease with which canvas can be obtained as com-
pared with birch bark of the proper size, its
lightness and strength and resistance to injury,
has endeared the canvas canoes to the Indian,
as well as to the white. The next step in the
evolution is the wooden canoe, a stauncher and
stronger boat and useful on the sea, one that
is propelled both by oars and paddles. From
that to the strong canoe-shaped rowing boats
used as tenders by the fishermen here seems
also a simple step, while the large sailing boat
104
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE
with its pointed ends appears to be but an am-
plification of the tender.
Our boat or barge, as it was technically called,
was decked over and provided with a small
cock-pit astern, and an equally small cabin or
cuddy in the bow. It was schooner-rigged
with two masts, and, although the owners took
great pride in the white sails, and said the boat
could therefore sail the faster, I myself re-
gretted that the sails were not stained a pic-
turesque red, or pink, or brown, as were those
of many other barges in this region. Some of
these stains were wonderful bits of colour,
shading like a water-colour wash from dark
mahogany in one part of the sail, to a light
pinkish hue in another part. Others were more
uniform, but the effect was always pleasing
and suggestive of the colouring of the sails in
far less rugged and more smiling waters.
In the cuddy of our boat was a tiny iron
stove, which, however, took up so much of the
little room that there was but space for one
man to lie out at length on that side, and here
my friend made his bed. On the other transom
Mathias and Martial by overlapping end to end
were able to sleep, and sleep they did there
105
A LABRADOR SPRING
every night on the narrow shelf as quietly as
babies. A small triangle of floor was left be-
tween on which a child of six might have been
able to lie at length, and which Martial explained
by expressive pantomime made an excellent
bed if one sat up and leaned against the mast.
Guns, charts, food, cameras, clothing and
materials for preparing specimens took up all
available space not devoted to sleeping and
cooking, but by a little care in managing, we
were able to live very comfortably. It cer-
tainly simplifies life to have, as Martial ex-
pressed it, la salle a manger, la salle a fumer, la
chambre a coucher, le salon et la cuisine all to-
gether. One could put one's hand on every
thing from a central point. According to Dr.
Grenfell, there is a Labrador beatitude which
says: " Most blessed is the man who can get
along with least things."
Although there was plenty of air in these
somewhat confined quarters, and it was always
cold at night, I preferred all out of doors for
my chambre a coucher, and, provided with a
sleeping-bag and a bed of balsam boughs care-
fully thatched on the deck, I enjoyed this
chambre to my heart's content during the cruise.
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CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE
A sleeping-bag is a delightful thing in a cold
climate; one dresses instead of undressing for
bed, and puts on all the clothes he has, if his
blanket is thin, while going to bed is very much
like crawling into a hole and pulling the hole
in afterwards, a thing most of us would like
to do metaphorically from time to time.
To sleep out under the stars in cool, pure air,
free from mosquitoes or flies of any sort, to
breathe in the fragrance of the balsam and the
sea, to be gently rocked by the subdued ocean
waves in protected harbours, to be lulled to
sleep by the lapping of the water against the
boat's sides, by the calls of the spotted sandpiper
and the evening hymn of the robin, to awake to
the song of the fox sparrow and the white-
throat on the shores, and the love-cooing of the
eider on the water, this was indeed good
and productive of heart's content.
Such a boat as this should needs have a
name, but the need apparently had not occurred
to the owners. I asked, therefore, the name of
one of the daughters of Mathias, who, in prep-
aration for the cruise, was diligently scrubbing
the cabin at the moorings off Esquimaux Point,
and at once with due solemnity christened the
107
A LABRADOR SPRING
boat " La Belle Marguerite," choosing the name
the more readily as one of my own also bore it.
From Esquimaux Point we set sail in "La
Belle Marguerite " with a good breeze on May
25th, skirting the shore on the left and the
islands on the right, successively passing Es-
quimaux Island, Sea Cow Island, Charles
Island and Hunting Island, all of the Mingan
group. At times it seemed more like sailing in
inland lakes than in the sea. The second of
these islands just mentioned takes its name,
not from the sea-cow or manatee, but from
the walrus which formerly extended its range
from the arctic regions along this Labrador
coast, but is now never seen there except in
the most northern portions of Labrador.
From Esquimaux Point a beach extends
eastward for twelve miles or more, backed by a
sand and clay cliff, brown and white and gray,
which increases in height towards the east-
wards, where it reaches an elevation of a hun-
dred and twenty-five feet. Here, as we after-
wards discovered, bank swallows had made
their nesting holes, and about sixty of these
little birds, uttering their rasping chirps, were
flying about. How they manage to dig their
108
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE
deep holes in the hard bank with their feeble
claws and bill is always a mystery. It only
shows what persistence will do, and the same
lesson was taught by the great cross gullies, or
canyons, made in these cliffs by little rivulets,
that had been slowly cutting down to sea level,
or perhaps had always remained at sea level
as the cliffs were gradually elevated.
On the way we stopped to watch a single
northern phalarope, sitting like a miniature
swan in the water and pirouetting about in the
stormy waves. The bird proved to be a female.
It is interesting to remember that among the
phalaropes the females are larger and more
brightly coloured than the males, that they do
the courting, and that they leave to the down-
trodden husband the duties of incubation and
care of the young. They are suffragettes with
a vengeance.
At Faux Pas Island, a gravelly and grassy
bank of a few acres in extent, we landed and
feasted our eyes on our first saddle-back's or
great black-backed gull's nest. A conspicuous
object it was, over four feet across, made of
roots, grasses and seaweed, and built over a
derelict tree trunk. Inside it measured ten
109
A LABRADOR SPRING
inches in diameter, was lined with fine grasses
and contained three great eggs, olive-green in
colour, beautifully decorated with large brown
spots. After this we found many of these nests,
nearly every island contained several of
them. Some of the nests consisted only of
depressions in the turf surrounded by rings of
particularly green grass, nests that had prob-
ably been used for successive years. We were
rarely out of sight or hearing of these splendid
birds all the time we were in Labrador, even
when we were trudging over the inland bogs.
Splendid great birds they were indeed with their
snow-white heads, breasts and tails, and their
black backs and wings, and they recalled
slightly by their size, colouring and majestic
flight the bald eagle. Their calls were interest-
ing and very various. Some were suggestive
of human anger or grief or derision. At times
their voices appeared to threaten, at times to
deride, and again they appeared to be con-
versing in low tones to each other as they flew
overhead or sailed about gracefully in the
strong winds. Hoarse ha, ha, ha, high pitched
ki, ki, ki, harsh and croaking caw, caw, caw,
were some of their calls I noted, and sometimes
no
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE
they cried car-ca-son most distinctly. That
evening we anchored behind Hunting Island
in the sheltered harbour of Betchewun, and
paid our respects to the solitary inhabitant.
Again we were off, and this time, taking ad-
vantage of the calm water in the early morning,
we laid our course for Seal Rock, which was a
barren lime-stone rock, one of the last of the
Mingan group. Not altogether barren this
rock proved to be, however, for, although only
about an acre in extent, it could be seen even
from a distance to be covered with black ob-
jects, which stretched up their necks in alarm
at our approach. Suddenly about 400 birds,
double-crested cormorants or shags as they
are also called, sprang into the air and flew
about over our heads, for the most part silent
but occasionally uttering hoarse croaks. Weird
birds they are, with long, snake-like necks and
great feet like bat's wings, with webs connect-
ing all their toes. Their black plumage, show-
ing a purple metallic sheen, is relieved by orange-
coloured patches of bare skin at the throat,
at the base of the bill and in front of the eye.
Their eyelids are black with a beading of blue
spots, while the eyes themselves are emerald-
111
A LABRADOR SPRING
green. The inside of the mouth is one of their
greatest charms, and, according to Selous, is
displayed during courtship; it is coloured a
vivid, theatrical blue, which contrasts in a
striking manner with the bare, orange throat.
How irresistible a cormorant beau must be
when he casts his jewelled eyes at his lady love,
and opens on her the blue grotto of his mouth!
To complete his charms, he is provided with
two little tufts of feathers, one either side of his
head, from which he gets his specific name.
From afar we scented their domiciles, for
an all pervading " ancient and a fish-like " smell
rose upon the air. We counted 204 nests,
basket-like structures six inches to a foot high
and a foot and a half across, made of sticks and
seaweed cunningly woven together and lined
with grasses. Some were decorated, I use
the word advisedly, with large gulls' feath-
ers, and many with branches of evergreen,
balsam, fir, spruce, juniper and laurel. Nearly
all contained eggs, chalky white and dirty,
from one to five in number. One needed a
strong stomach and a sure foot to walk about
these rocks slippery with " la farine des cormo-
rants," which painted rocks and nests alike a
112
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE
dirty white colour. At last we finished our
work of counting, photographing, and note-
taking, and, as we departed, we were glad to
see the great black aeroplanes sail gracefully
down to their unsavoury abodes.
"As with his wings aslant,
Sails the fierce cormorant,
Seeking his rocky haunt,
With his prey laden,"
Milton in "Paradise Lost" offers a tribute to
the uncanny nature of this bird, when he says
of Satan:
" Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life,
The middle tree and highest there that grew,
Sat like a cormorant."
After this we hoped to explore Bald Island,
the home of the puffins, but the wind proving
unfavourable we deferred this visit for a future
time, and again turned our prow eastward
and soon passed a solitary house on the rocky
shore, which was used in the lobster fishery.
Here, beginning the first week in June, lobsters
are caught and canned. Farther to the east-
ward near the mouth of the Corneille River is
another house used by salmon-fishers. At last
113
A LABRADOR SPRING
we came to anchor in a lovely land-locked
harbour among Les Isles des Corneilles, and
here we spent a most interesting twenty-four
hours, exploring the low, rounded granitic
islands and the main land with its salt marshes,
its bogs, its impenetrable forests and its rush-
ing turbid river.
Eiders were everywhere and their love notes
were constantly in our ears. They were to be
seen not only on the water, but also on the
rocks and among the stunted spruce bushes
of the islands where we frequently stumbled
on their nests, the large olive -green eggs con-
cealed in a mass of soft eider down.
A flock of twenty-eight geese were feeding
in a shallow pool between two islands, and, as
I watched them from a sheltered sunny nook
beside a great snowbank, I listened to the songs
of the melodious sparrow family as represented
by the white-crowned, white-throated, tree and
fox sparrows, all good singers. To the majority
of people the word sparrow calls up only the
English sparrow of our streets with its nerve-
racking chirps ! Little do they know how musi-
cal are most of this tribe and what a great tribe
it is.
114
MATHIAS AND MARTIAL AND THE BEAVER.
THE BEAVER" SKIN.
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE
It was here in the little harbour of the Crow
that Mathias, he of the brass bracelet to keep
off rheumatism and salt-water sores, cried out
" Les Sauvages! " and here I made my first
visit on these interesting people.
Again we bore away, and this time for Pi-
ashte-bai Bay, at whose mouth we visited a soli-
tary Indian wigwam, and spent part of two
days with a fur-trader, visiting his house, as-
cending the river to the falls and gathering
much interesting information.
While we were on the shore we met one of the
inhabitants returning from his traps with a
large beaver on his back, and, on our return to
" La Belle," we found that the men had shot
another as it was swimming across the harbour.
They are interesting beasts, these beaver, from
many points of view, historical and otherwise,
and that night I learned some new facts. With
great care Mathias prepared the tit-bit, the
tail, for supper. First he roasted it slightly over
the embers, so that the black, scaly skin could
be easily scraped off; then with an axe he cut
up the white meat into little cubes, and boiled it
in a sauce-pan. It tasted something like pigs'
feet, and although good eating, was not as
115
A LABRADOR SPRING
pleasant to my palate as beaver steaks, which
were delicious and suggested goose. As we
were eating I suddenly remembered it was
Friday, and feared our good friends were com-
mitting a grievous sin. Not so, however, for,
as Mathias explained, beaver is poisson,as is also
the moynak or eider and other sea ducks, but
one may not eat of river ducks on Friday, for
they are viands. There are more ways than
one of whipping the devil around the stump.
Of eggs, however, there was no question, and
my companion was an ardent collector of egg
shells. With a drill he carefully bored a hole
in one side of the egg into which a small blow-
pipe was inserted; now this blow-pipe was
connected with a rubber bulb, which, on com-
pression by the hand, forced out through the
same hole the contents of the egg. These con-
tents were not wasted, far from it, but
were received into the frying-pan, and we had,
with a clear conscience and as the result of
scientific activity on our parts, omelets of
eiders', great-black-backed gulls', puffins' and
even cormorants' eggs. The last named we let
Mathias prepare after a Labrador receipt : flour
in generous proportion was mixed with the eggs,
116
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE
together with salt and butter, the whole form-
ing a stiff pancake which was browned on one
side, turned over and browned on the other,
and then cut into four pie-shaped pieces that
could stand alone. It tasted good, although
a trifle fishy, but it had great staying qualities,
in fact, as I noted in my journal, it was " fine
and filling."
That afternoon we did not sail far, for even
in Labrador it is calm sometimes, and we cast
anchor in the Grand Bay of Piashte-bai,
the nomenclature which I follow with great care
is at times difficult. Here we were surrounded
by granitic glacier-smoothed islands, cut by
dark basaltic dykes, supporting but little vege-
tation and that of an arctic type, a bleak
coast. On one of these islands we found the
remains of a white man's camp as shown by a
circle of empty tins, and discovered the cause
of his presence in some blasting operations
which had been conducted for the purpose of
obtaining a small quantity and poor quality
of mica. The quest for " wealth in the rocks "
proves often a disastrous will-o'-the-wisp for
mankind.
We visited another cormorant colony the
117
A LABRADOR SPRING
next day, undeterred by our first experience,
and found seventy-three nests on the bare
rock, after which we bore away for the high
headland of Quatachoo, which stood up like a
sentinel among the multitude of low, prostrate
islands where we took refuge from the stormy
sea in a deep and quiet anchorage. The water
was tinged the colour of tea from the river
which poured with the roar of distant rapids
from the mainland to the north. From a rocky
hill, which rose about a hundred and twenty-
five feet nearly sheer from the ocean, I could see
between the scuds of fog that drifted landwards
the low island-studded coast, barren for the
most part, save for the trees in the gullies.
The red and gray granitic rocks were relieved
by great veins of white quartz, and cleft by
dark basalt, while every deep hollow contained
a snowdrift of unsullied whiteness, and all
the seaward shores were surf- fringed.
"The Night-winds sigh, the breakers roar,
And shrieks the wild sea-mew."
It was cold, it was barren, it was lonely, for there
was no sign of man to be seen in any direction,
yet it was a scene thoroughly to be enjoyed.
118
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE
There is a charm about the barren places of the
earth not easily described in words, a charm
that the artist attempts to transfer to canvas,
and one that appeals often times with especial
force to the naturalist.
After an excellent dinner of broiled duck
in the salle a manger of "La Belle," for I must
not have the gentle reader imagine that I lived
only on air and view and philosophy, we turned
our prow again to the eastward, and sought
through the stormy sea for the place the
canards des roches, the curious many coloured
harlequin ducks, were said to frequent, a place
known in these parts as Watcheeshoo. On
peering over some rocks here we saw three of
these curious birds and watched them swim
and fly away.
While I was toasting my toes on the little
10 x 1 6 inch stove at the entrance of the cuddy
that night, listening to the cooing of the eiders,
the gentle chiding laughter of the saddle-backs,
and to the roar of the surf on the outer side of
the island, while within was calm and peace-
ful, watching the sun go down in a golden
glory, and thinking of our luck in seeing the
harlequins, a canoe silently glided alongside.
119
A LABRADOR SPRING
Kneeling in the bottom at the paddles were two
Indians, one an old man with a scanty beard,
the other a beardless youth. They came on
board and shook hands, exchanged a few unin-
telligible words with our men and departed as
silently as they came.
The Indians that I saw in canoes on the coast
always kneeled and did not sit up on the
thwarts as their white brothers often do. At
Mingan one Indian refused to take me in his
canoe unless I sat in the bottom and did not
paddle. To escape that ignominy I kneeled at
the bow paddle in the canoe of another Indian,
but when I could bear the position no longer,
and my knees were almost paralyzed, I made
bold to raise myself to a sitting position on a
basket and continued to paddle. My friend,
who was sitting facing the Indian in the stern,
said that his countenance expressed the utmost
anxiety at this move on my part, and that drops
of perspiration stood out on his brow. And I do
not blame him, for he did not know, and I could
not tell him whether I had ever been in a canoe
before or not, and he probably was unable to
swim.
That evening Martial told us of his trip on
120
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE
the ice a hundred and fifty miles up the Romaine
River one winter, hunting and dragging stores
on a sled for men who were measuring and
charting that great stream. His clever pan-
tomime made his patois more intelligible, and
every now and then he would favour us with
snatches of song. He was a merry fellow. The
songs of Mathias were slower and more solemn,
and I often wondered whether they were not
some of the old songs brought by the Acadians
from France in 1605. His family name is
among the list of those expelled from the basin
of Minas in 1755.
Sunday, May 3oth, was a cloudy, rainy day
with a cold northeast wind, and, under reefed
sails, we threaded the narrow passages among
the islands in a manner that showed a wonderful
knowledge of this region by our men. The charts
we brought with us they never looked at, and
indeed these charts showed but a small part of
these islands and of the intricacies of the coast.
Up Yellow Bay, a long, narrow land-locked pas-
sage, we sailed with apparently no chance of
escape, but suddenly we opened up what on
the eastern coast would be called a " tickle,"
and through this we glided to the open sea.
121
A LABRADOR SPRING
As we passed Pashasheeboo Bay, a name
which Mathias delighted to roll on his tongue, we
saw a solitary house, a lobster fisherman's.
For a long distance we sailed among rocky
islands, and we passed a lovely protected har-
bour, forest skirted, which Mathias called le
hdvre des sauvages, for, he said, fourteen or
fifteen families of Indians camped there every
summer, and I admired their taste.
Soon the scene changed, and we skirted at a
safe distance a ten mile, surf-lined beach, backed
by cliffs and a dark spruce forest. The Na-
besippi River flowed out in the middle of this
beach, and, at the eastern end, the Agwanus
River discharged. Here was a big church, a
bigger trading-house and a dozen or two small
houses of the habitants, all fishermen and trap-
pers. Hundreds of terns or sea swallows, as
they are called, graceful creatures, flew about
us screaming, and it was evident that they
were nesting on the barren islands. As the
breakers appeared to form a continuous white
line across the entrance to the harbour where
a few fishing boats were riding at anchor, we
concluded that the open sea was much pleas-
anter, and we pushed on in our staunch boat.
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CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE
Two or three more miles of sand beach and then
rocky islands uncounted appeared as we sailed by
Washtawooka Bay. The land was everywhere
terraced and flat topped, showing stages of
elevation above the sea, the edges of the terraces
marked with lines of snow which made good
settings to the fringes of spruces. It was a glori-
ous day's sail of over fifty miles in the storm and
wet, but our boat was staunch, our crew were
skilful, our oilskins tight, and the air and the
water contained many objects dear to the or-
nithologist.
We reached Natashquan, literally " the place
where the seals haul out," at the end of the after-
noon, and cast anchor in the shallow, sandy
harbour at the mouth of the little Natashquan,
after running on to a sandbar. Mathias, while
rowing us ashore in the canoe, after failing to
make us understand in his native tongue, as-
tonished us by an attempt in English. " Sirs,"
he said, for he afterwards told us he had learned
English at Clark City, " the tide she rise low,
maintenant."
We were hospitably received by Martial's
sister, who asked us, as I thought, whether
we wished crabs, for breakfast next day. I
123
A LABRADOR SPRING
eagerly acquiesced, having visions of broiled
crabs, but there appeared on the table large
pan-cakes much soaked in fat, crepes, a favour-
ite dish along the coast, and one we found
stood us in good stead on an all day tramp.
There was, however, no crape, as my friend
suggested there might be, on the door next day.
Natashquan is a rambling village on both
sides of the mouth of the Little Natashquan
River. On the right bank was a small group
of houses including the trading post, which
went under the name of the Labrador Fur
Company, and as the wife of the trader had
just entertained eight Indians at dinner she
was much wearied, yet on learning that we
came from the States and talked English, -
she herself came from Chicago, she and her
husband made us at home, and gave us with
the aid of a piano and her pleasant voice a
musical evening.
Another building on the right bank was the
house of the telegraph operator, he of the
wig and a face devoid of eyebrows, lashes and
beard. The trader told us that some years
ago this man and another strongly opposed the
appointment of a certain schoolmaster by the
124
NEST AND EGGS OF DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT.
A CORNER OF A CORMORANT ROOKERY AT SEAL ROCK.
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE
priest, and in the heat of the argument, they
exclaimed " may we lose every hair of our
bodies if this vile one is appointed." The priest
had his way, and they both began to lose their
hair. One in fright and repentance made his
peace with the priest, and all was well. Not
so the stubborn telegraph operator, and to
this day he is as devoid of hair as is an apple.
On the eastern side of the river, which we
crossed in one of the numerous small boats left
on its sandy shores, were a few more houses and
a large church and a priests' house. From the
latter a straight path led along the top of a
ridge, an old raised sea beach, bordered
on either side with thickly growing white
spruces. Beyond lay the beach four miles
long, backed by shifting sand dunes, and at
the end of the beach was the Great Natash-
quan River with its little Indian village.
It was on this beach that we saw a pair of
piping plovers, with their sweet mournful
calls, a bird that has not been recorded for
Labrador before, and a splendid Caspian tern
flew by so close that we could surely identify
it. Audubon had found this bird here in 1833
and Frazer in 1884 had discovered a breeding
125
A LABRADOR SPRING
colony. We were glad to find that the bird
still survived.
Near the town the spruces and firs had been
so cut away that the sand was sweeping back
and had already overwhelmed one house. A
large cross, evidently erected to stop the
progress of the shifting dunes, stood in the
midst of this waste. Heretic that I was, I
could not help thinking it would have been
wiser to plant beach-grass and trees.
As we had been told at Quebec that the mail
boat reaching Natashquan about the first of
June would continue on to Harrington, we
climbed aboard the " Aranmore " as she lay
at anchor at a long and safe distance off Natash-
quan, fully expecting to go on further east.
What was our surprise when our old friend
Captain Hearn turned her prow westward
again, and my hopes of glimpses of the bird
colonies of Cape Whittle and of Dr. Grenfell's
hospital at Harrington were dashed. However,
we were glad to return to Esquimaux Point,
and I knew by previous experience that a
Labrador steamer, like life itself, was very
uncertain.
As unfavourable winds had prevented us
126
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE
from reaching Bald Island near Betchewun
on this cruise, we visited it on the 8th and Qth
of June by sailing from Esquimaux Point in
" La Belle Marguerite." The island is of about
a dozen acres in extent, and presents to the
sea turreted and arched limestone cliffs from
fifteen to thirty feet high. Its flat top was
covered with deep black soil, on which a forest
of giant stalks of cow parsnip were still stand-
ing from the previous summer. In this loose
soil and under the rocks were numerous bur-
rows of puffins, or perroquets, as they are uni-
versally called on the Labrador coast. Each
burrow was from two to three feet long, and,
at the end, the owner was usually sitting on her
single dirty white egg in a nest of straw.
Extraordinary birds are these puffins, about
150 of whom were to be constantly seen flying
and swimming about the island. Their large
parrot-like red bill, their pale gray spectacled
face and black collar, and their short, chunky
build made them appear grotesque on the water
or in flight, and even more grotesque when they
stood bolt upright on the rocks, and comically
anxious when they walked about near us. Their
bills in the breeding season, when examined
127
A LABRADOR SPRING
carefully, are seen to be scarlet, with a steel
blue base on the lower mandible, a white line
on the upper and an orange patch at the com-
misure. There is a curious blue horny spur
above the eye, and the edges of the eyelid are
vermilion, while the inside of the mouth is a
deep gamboge yellow, and the feet are orange
red.
Another bird that later in the season laid its
eggs on this island, one can not say nested, for
the egg is deposited on the bare rock, was the
razor-billed auk, and we saw a little company of
seventeen of these birds flying about the island,
all that was left of the throngs that bred in that
region in Audubon's day. Here the bill is jet
black ornamented with a curved white line,
and wonderfully set off, when the bird opens
its mouth, by the brilliant yellow lining of that
cavity. The birds were swimming about in
little bands with their tails cocked up, and were
evidently discussing matrimonial plans.
One does not expect to pick up the eggs of
wood birds at sea, but on our return from Bald
Island we were obliged to anchor behind Little
St. Charles Island, where a fishing boat from
Esquimaux Point had also taken refuge from
123
CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE
the high wind. An exchange of shouted civil-
ities between the two boats resulted, in which
it appeared, for our fame had spread,
that some eggs of the spruce partridge, greatly
desired by my companion, had just been
found. In fact the fisherman while ashore
for wood had put his foot into the nest, and
broken four of the twelve eggs. However,
the remainder, beautifully speckled with brown,
were gratefully received.
I have now finished a cursory survey of the
Labrador coast from its western point to Na-
tashquan, a distance of 250 miles. In another
book I attempted to describe the 600 miles of
coast between Bradore and Nain. The hiatus
of about 240 miles between Natashquan and
Bradore was explored and described by Audu-
bon in 1833, and I hope some day to follow in his
steps; in the meantime it is a satisfaction to
feel that the gap in one's narrative is so well
filled.
129
CHAPTER VI
THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS
" In such like Toils and Sports, the Year goes round,
And for each day, some Work or Pleasure's found."
Cartwright.
TN the latter part of the eighteenth cen-
* tury an adventurous Englishman spent
sixteen years on the bleak eastern Labrador
coast engaged in fishing, trapping and hunting,
and in trading with the aborigines. Captain
Cartwright 's Journal, originally published in
1793, shows the evident joy of the man in his
rugged life on those shores, and his appreciation
of its attractions, notwithstanding the severity
of its climate and its loneliness. Although, as
a younger son in an old family of depleted
fortunes, his ostensible object was the accumula-
tion of money, it is evident that the spirit of
sport and adventure, and not the desire to
amass a fortune, was his guiding star. Origi-
nally possessed of independence of character,
130
THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS
his life in Labrador further developed it, as
such a life naturally would, and instead of
leading the trivial humdrum life of the average
sporting squire, which would probably have
been his lot if he had settled down at home, he
became a careful observer and an accurate
recorder of animal and vegetable nature, a
skilful leader of men, and just in all his relations
with them, notably so in his relations with the
savages, both Eskimo and Indian, an in-
teresting figure indeed in the early days of the
Labrador coast.
This same joy of living in remote parts, away
from the conventional life of the cities, this
same love of a wild life with all its hardships
and struggles, is still an attribute of humanity
not difficult to find. The conventional city
life has been of very recent advent in the his-
tory of the human race ; it is a mere speck in
his inheritance of the past, and we all tend to
revert to the savage. The man who does not is
sincerely to be pitied ; he does not know the
full joy of living.
Three friends that I made on this Labrador
coast each suggested in his own way my old
friend Cartwright. The first was a New Eng-
131
A LABRADOR SPRING
lander from a poky little suburb of a great city,
a clear-eyed, well-bronzed, rosy-cheeked man,
spare and sinewy. He had spent fourteen years
on this coast and he loved the life, and so did his
wife, who joined with him in trapping and
shooting. They lived in a comfortable house
in a lovely bay protected by a fringe of pointed
firs and higher land on the north, and by an
outlying island on the south. A spring of
clear cold water bubbled forth summer and
winter on the little beach in front of the house.
They had no neighbours but the white-throated
sparrows and hermit thrushes in summer, the
ptarmigan and snow buntings in winter, for
the nearest settlement was eighteen miles
away, but they did not lack for occupation and
diversion, and they had much of interest to
show and talk about when they hospitably
received us at their table. Of birds, as always
when we met intelligent people, we talked much,
and our host showed us some stuffed birds, his
own handiwork, including an albino murre, and,
of live birds, a pair of black ducks he had
brought up as pets. Of trapping he had many
tales to tell, both of his successes and failures.
He had that day returned from setting some
132
THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS
great bear-traps, for in the spring when the
bears first come out from their winter hiberna-
tion, their fur is in good condition.
Of the common belief, so frequently enlarged
upon by writers of popular natural history, that
animals frequently bite off their own legs to
free themselves from traps, he had no regard.
In fact, although he said the animal sometimes
eats the severed and dead foot under the trap,
he had found no evidence of their biting the
flesh or bone above the trap. By twisting and
pulling, however, in their attempts to get away,
he said the animal not infrequently escapes and
leaves the foot behind. In the case of the
rabbit this freeing from the trap by the loss of
a foot is not uncommon, an accident that the
slender bones and tender skin of this animal
would easily account for, while the usual
explanation, in an animal accustomed to use
its teeth on bark and other vegetable substances
only, he deemed very improbable. Although I
had never considered the subject before, and
had accepted the usual explanation, I believe he
is right, for the method of escape from a trap
by biting off the foot would be a most unnatural
procedure, and would call for a considerable
133
A LABRADOR SPRING
amount of reasoning power, while the struggle
ending in breaking away would be the natural
and instinctive one.
Of shooting seals with a rifle he had much to
tell us, and of the pleasures of this pursuit
conducted by lying down covered with a sack
on a reef, and acting and grunting hoarsely
like the animal; and he showed us some
beautiful skins both of the bay seal and of the
horse-head. Between the tenth of June and the
tenth of July he catches seals in nets, and one
hundred and eighty pelts were the result of
his work the year before.
Of his dogs he spoke with great affection,
and they massive brutes, some Eskimo,
some half Newfoundland fully reciprocated
it. To one who is familiar with the cruel way
in which many of the Eskimo dogs are treated
on the eastern Labrador coast, it was a pleasure
to see the different treatment accorded them
here. Unfortunately an epidemic among the
dogs had spread like wild -fire along the coast
the winter before, and many of the most
valued animals were dead, some within the
space of a day after the first seizure.
My New England Cartwright had much to
134
THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS
say of the intelligence and strength of some of
these, and of the pleasure of speeding over the
icy highways that line the coast in winter
behind a team of these useful animals. The
winter season, instead of shutting him up to
wait impatiently for milder weather, was a sea-
son of great interest and pleasure, the trapping
season and the season for much travelling. In
summer his means of transportation was a
staunch little schooner, about the size of our
" Belle Marguerite," to which he had just applied
a fresh coat of paint, and had got ready for the
launching. The life of this former New Eng-
lander was a varied and interesting one, and I
could not help comparing it with the life he
would have led if he had remained in the
suburb of the great city.
Of the second figure in this company of three
I speak with particular admiration and respect.
He is a Belgian who has lived here for thirteen
years and married a Labradorian; both he
and his charming wife and sister-in-law re-
ceived us with great courtesy and hospitality.
He is an interesting and picturesque figure, a
man in many respects like Cartwright, although
superficially very different, and belonging to
135
A LABRADOR SPRING
a different nation. At the head of a little bay
close by the discharge of a tumultuous river
on a granitic glacier-smoothed rock he has
built his house, the finest house I have seen
on all the Labrador coast. The roar of the
rapids beside him, and the subdued murmur of
the distant cataract in the forest, is always in
his ears. On the one side the sun rises over
the bay with its rocky islets, and sets on the
other behind the barren hills which terminate
his view over the dark spruce forest. On the
shore of the bay below him are the half dozen
houses of the habitants, and a tiny chapel
completes the picture of the little village, while
several fishing boats ride at anchor a stone's
throw away.
On the opposite side of the river are some
large enclosures that at once attracted our at-
tention. These are parks for the breeding of
black foxes, whose skins, beautiful in them-
selves, have been greatly enhanced in value
by the whims of royal fashion until they have
become one of the most precious products of
the Labrador coast. To the trapper in the
wilds they are lucky incidents, a much hoped
for dream which may never be realized. To
136
A BLACK FOX PARK AT PIASHTE-BAI.
PIASHTE-BAI RIVER AND LAKE FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE HIGH LAND
OF THE INTERIOR.
THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS
produce these in captivity has been one of the
many schemes of the active brain of this
Belgian Cartwright, and he has devoted many
years to the study of the subject. He has
five or six parks each of an acre and a half in
extent, surrounded by strong wire netting
fences, supported by posts eighteen feet tall.
An overhang at the top prevents the escape
of the active inhabitants above, while the solid
Laurentian rock is an effectual bar below.
Each park contains but one family, and they
have plenty of room to roam, and plenty of
place for concealment among the stunted
spruces. They live well, for lobsters are
especially procured for their table. I caught a
glimpse of one splendid fellow running about
with his thousand dollar coat. We were told
that these skins are of more value than those
of wild ones, for the animals are well looked
after and their food supply never fails them.
It is not, as with Indians and wild foxes, a
short feast and a long famine. In July they
bring forth their litters of five to nine each, and
breed true.
The black fox is merely a colour-phase of
the common red fox, and not a separate species.
137
A LABRADOR SPRING
The red fox varies from the common form,
which is a rich fulvous red with a white tip
to the tail and small black markings on feet and
ears, through certain well marked stages,
known as the cross or patch fox, and the silver,
to the black fox. In the cross fox the feet,
legs and under parts are black, while red more
or less mixed and overlaying black extends
over the head and back. In the silver fox
the red is nearly absent, and the fur is dark at
the base, while the tips of the hairs are white
or gray. In the pure black fox the white or
silver tips to the hairs are everywhere elimi-
nated, except at the tip of the tail, which always
remains white. The red phase is of course the
most abundant form, while the others increase
in rarity in the order giyen. The black is the
rarest, and a good black fox skin brings an
extremely high price. The Fur Trade Review
for 1907 says: "The fashion for this article
continues, and the fine dark skins are specially
in demand the highest priced skin realized
^440 " ($2,140). Our Belgian friend told us he
had obtained from $400 to $1,400 for his skins,
and averaged $700. After five or six years he
had succeeded in eliminating all the red from
138
THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS
their furs, and the animals were now breeding
true and producing only the black phase.
The United States Department of Agriculture
has recently published a farmer's bulletin on
the subject of silver fox farming, by Wilfred
H. Osgood. It concludes that fox farming
should never be attempted south of the southern
boundary of the Canadian zone, and it states
by way of summary that : ' ' Like most new
enterprises, fox raising is a business regarding
which opinions vary. The favourable facts are
that silver foxes are easily and securely kept
in simple wire enclosures; that suitable food
for them is cheap and easily obtainable; that
they are not subject to serious diseases, and
that their disposition and the colour of their
fur can be improved by selective breeding.
Opposed to these are the unfavourable facts
that they are by nature suspicious, nervous, and
not inclined to repose confidence in man; and
that, largely for these reasons, they do not
breed regularly and successfully, except when
cared for by experienced persons more or less
gifted in handling them.
" The number of persons now engaged in the
business is relatively small, and the work is
139
A LABRADOR SPRING
still experimental, yet many of the initial
difficulties have already been overcome. Nu-
merous minor failures seem explainable in large
measure, and are offset by several conspicuous
successes. It is therefore probable that under
proper management fox raising will be de-
veloped into a profitable industry, and it is
perhaps not too much to expect that a domestic
breed of foxes will be produced. Only time
will show how such expectations will be realized,
but present indications must be regarded as
very encouraging."
The house of this Belgian Cartwright did not
remind one of Labrador, although many of
the trophies displayed on its walls were products
of the country. The rooms were large and
comfortable, with ample doors and windows.
One room suggested an armoury, as it contained
racks of guns of all sizes and patterns, from the
newest hammerless breech loaders to the old-
time muzzle loader with an elongated barrel.
The window-sills of the billiard-room were lined
with flowering plants, and the walls contained
many products of the chase, boars' heads
from Europe and caribou antlers, seal skins
and bear skins from the neighbourhood. A
HO
THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS
walrus skull and an Eskimo harpoon from the
northeastern coast hung near some cabinets
of mounted birds, the product of his gun along
the coast. Among these we found a blue jay,
a bird hitherto unrecorded for Labrador. This
bird he had shot the previous winter not far
from his house; later we saw a single bird of
this species at Mingan, so that our record for
this bird for Labrador is very satisfactory.
One of the most interesting departments of
the household was the refrigerating plant, built
after the master's own design. It consisted of
a detached building in which were several
zinc-lined chests surrounded by a freezing
mixture of snow and salt. In these chests,
frozen solidly, was game of all sorts, mostly
obtained in winter for summer use. Trout and
porcupines, haunch of caribou and of beaver
and of other animals, for our host, like Cart-
wright of old, being of independent mind and
not subservient to custom, was fond of trying
the flesh of animals not commonly used as food.
Among the birds were willow ptarmigan, white
as snow, with the exception of their black tails
and the black centres of their wing quills, and
a couple of splendid Barrow's golden-eye ducks.
141
A LABRADOR SPRING
These were at once courteously given us for our
collections.
Of the man himself it is almost unnecessary
to speak; the environment which he created
is sufficient to describe him. Ardently devoted
to the chase, a good shot, interested in natural
history, a clever artist, a quick and accurate
observer, he afforded us many delightful hours
spent in his company, for we were so fortunate
as to meet him not only as guests at his house,
but at several other places on the coast where
he had gone to meet Indians to trade for their
furs and incidentally to fish and to shoot. His
observations on birds, for one who had not
made an especial study of the subject, were
particularly acute and interesting, and he
entered with ardour at our suggestion upon a
more careful and scientific study of ornithology.
Like Cartwright he had kept a journal of his
daily life and observations.
Like his prototype Cartwright, also, he was
interesting in figure and in dress. Picture to
yourself a rather small man with pointed beard
and moustaches, piercing black eyes lighted
up with kindliness and vivacity, and a lithe
frame showing great vigour and activity. In
142
THREE LITTLE INDIAN GIRLS.
TWO MONTAGNAIS COMPANIONS AT MINGAN,
THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS
the field he wore a dark green corduroy suit of
knickerbockers, and a tall pointed cap made of
otters' tails. His gun hung from his shoulder
suspended by a strap. A photograph of him
I saw in the house of one of his numerous
friends on the coast shows him in winter dress.
He is on snow-shoes, and is clad entirely in
white with the exception of his dark seal-skin
boots and of the embroidery on the cuffs of
his mittens. His dark eyes, moustaches and
beard contrast well with the white pointed hood
which terminates, Eskimo-like, the upper part
of the costume. A gun is held over his left
shoulder, and a fine black fox, as in the old
print of Cartwright, is slung under his right;
the handle of a hunter's axe appears behind.
A man is often damned by his neighbours and
acquaintances, but everywhere we went on the
coast, people of all sorts spoke well of our
Belgian Cartwright. They all recognized his
capabilities and his constant courtesy. Some
spoke of his great accuracy of aim with shot-
gun or rifle, others of his eccentricity in sitting
down to a dinner of fox or some other unheard
of meat, and others again of his skill in bil-
liards. The story goes that when fishermen or
143
A LABRADOR SPRING
trappers visit him who have never before met
with such a piece of civilization as a billiard
table, he has innocently amused himself by
showing them grotesque ways of playing, using
the butt end of the cue or pushing it with both
hands as gravely as if it were the approved
method, but, however he plays, he is easily a
match for half a dozen of them.
I am sure we shall never forget him nor the
dinner at his house. After several days' cruising
in " La Belle Marguerite " we landed at his little
bay, and paid our respects to him. Our cre-
dentials as scientific bird students obtained
from the department of Colonization, Mines
and Fisheries of Quebec served here as else-
where to introduce us, and we were soon deep
in a laboured conversation on the subject of
the birds of Labrador. Laboured the con-
versation certainly was on our parts, for, as
our host spoke only French, we were obliged
to resort at times to our guide, companion and
friend a pocket conversational dictionary.
As we beheld ourselves for the first time for
many days in the mirror of the dressing-room
where our host left us to prepare for dinner, our
hearts failed us, and I left my friend con-
144
THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS
templating his ragged hunting suit and two
weeks' beard in dismay, while I courageously
descended to the salon in my a little less ragged
khakies. Our host wore green corduroy knicker-
bockers, silk stockings and pumps, the ladies
were becomingly attired in delicate white
material of Parisian and not Labrador make,
when my friend sailed into the room with
great dignity in his flannel shirt sleeves and
ancient " fluffy " leather waistcoat. He con-
fessed to me afterwards that the anguish of
deciding between a shrunken, stained and torn
shooting jacket on the one hand and shirt
sleeves on the other was intense, but the
" fluffy " leather waistcoat turned the scale
in favour of the latter unpardonable costume.
However, we endeavoured to make up for the
poverty of our clothes by the elegance of our
conversation, and we drank the health of the
madame and la belle soeur in the red wine of
sunny France with carefully chosen phrases
from our little dictionary. I could not help
thinking of the tramps in Erminie. A five
course dinner with all the " frills " on the
Labrador coast was certainly a surprise.
The third in this triumvirate of men of
145
A LABRADOR SPRING
original ideas presented an entirely different
figure from the last. A tall, raw-boned Yankee,
a painter by trade, and at first sight an un-
interesting personality. As we came to know
the man more intimately, however, and as he
revealed to us his history, his plans and his
views of life, we could not but admire and be
attracted by him. Although in appearance,
voice and conversation he was a typical Yankee,
he "hailed from" Western Massachusetts,
his name was evidently French. His ancestors, it
appeared, had come from France and settled
at Quebec, where they prospered. His great
grandfather, visiting the mother country, left
his affairs in the hands of the priests to guard
and preserve. He died abroad and his son
and grandson, the latter the father of our
hero, failed to claim their patrimony from
the Church, but moved to a little village in
New England where our Yankee Cartwright
grew up to the humble trade of house-painter.
It was evident, however, that the adventurous
and independent blood of his ancestors coursed
through his veins, and he refused to remain in
his native town, but travelled from place to
place plying his trade, but fretting all the time
146
THREE MODERN CARTWRIGHTS
at the bondage of the trade-unions. Finally
the spirit moved him to visit in a brief vacation
the home of his ancestors in Quebec, and while
there he stumbled on the mail steamer about
to leave for the Labrador Coast. He took
passage, intending to return by the same boat,
but at Seven Islands he kindly offered to help
out for a few days in painting the church,
taking the place of a painter who had fallen ill.
This was three years ago and he has been the
ecclesiastical painter along the coast ever since,
kept there partly by the entreaties of the
priests, but chiefly, he admitted, by his enjoy-
ment of the independence of the life, and the
fact that he was his own master and not subject
to walking delegates. He could work over
time to his heart's content, and do his very
best without fear of disparaging another. He
was particularly enthusiastic about the health-
fulness of the climate, and, like Cartwright of
old, declared that, although the thermometer
went many degrees below zero in the winter,
he never felt chilly as at home.
His plans for the future were certainly
original and were all carefully arranged. Al-
though he thoroughly enjoyed his work and the
147
A LABRADOR SPRING
free hand he had in it, he had decided that a
year from that summer he would join forces
with some good Indian friends of his, and go
with them into the interior on their regular
hunting and trapping expeditions, not to
emerge until the following June. In this way
he expected to satisfy his love for adventure
and wild life, and to lay in a stock of furs with
which to astonish his New England friends.
My modern Cartwrights are all good men and
true.
148
CHAPTER VII
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS
" Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness."
Cowper.
THE Labrador peninsula is a region well
adapted for fur-bearing animals. Along
the edges on the eastern and southern coasts the
white settler has long since well-nigh exter-
minated or driven off these animals with the
notable exception of the crafty fox, but the
interior still serves as a habitation and fairly
safe refuge for many beasts, although their
numbers are considerably diminished owing to
extensive fires * that have swept the country,
and to constant persecution. Most of the
interior is unexplored by the white man, yet
his influence through powder and ball supplied
1 According to Hind immense forest fires occurred in
Labrador in 1785, 1814, 1857 and 1859, and a very extensive
one I was told by Mr. J. A. Wilson, the factor at Mingan,
occurred about 40 years ago.
149
A LABRADOR SPRING
to the Indians, and his eagerness for trade has
had its effect on the native animals.
Hind has penetrated into the interior about
one hundred and fifty miles by way of the
Moisie River. Cabot has explored from the
eastern coast to the valley of the George River,
while Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, and following
closely in her steps, Dillon Wallace, have
travelled up the valley of the Nascaupee from
the Northwest River, crossed Lake Michikamau
and the height of land and descended the
George River to Ungava Bay.
But the explorer who has traversed Labrador
far more than all of these, and one who has
added most to our accurate knowledge of the
interior, is the Canadian geologist, A. P. Low.
He has done his work quietly and unheralded,
and the results are buried among the other
documents of the Canadian Geological Survey.
To tell of all his doings would be long, but
among other things he has crossed Labrador
in a canoe from south to north by way of Lake
Mistassini, the East Main, Kaniapiskau and
Koksoak Rivers. He has also ascended the
Hamilton River, portaged by the Grand Falls,
grand indeed, for they descend 760 feet in
150
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS
twelve miles and fall 302 feet sheer, and
explored Lake Michikamau. From the Ham-
ilton River he ascended the Attikonak,
and, by way of the Romaine and the St. John
Rivers, descended to the Gulf of St. Law-
rence.
Yet after all the greater part of this interior
of Labrador is a vast wilderness, still unspoiled
by the whites, still a happy hunting-ground for
the Indians. The Eskimos, true sea-dogs that
they are, keep to the sea-coast, except in the
far north beyond the Koksoak River. Of the
Indians there are two main tribes in Labrador,
divisions of the Cree branch of the great
Algonquin family. North of the Hamilton
River dwell the Nascaupees, while south of this
grand natural boundary the Montagnais or
Mountaineers have their migratory homes.
Besides these is the small tribe of coastal
Indians of Hudson Bay.
Originally dwelling further to the west these
Algon quins were gradually driven east and
north during the i6th and iyth centuries by
the terrible Iroquois, whose name even now
strikes terror to their hearts and serves as a
bogey to frighten their children. The Iroquois
151
A LABRADOR SPRING
were said to have pursued them at one time
as far as the Natashquan River. With the
Eskimos, whom the Indians always hated and
despised and with whom they do not inter-
marry, they were formerly always at war.
While the Eskimos in the time of Jacques
Cartier inhabited the whole of the eastern and
even some of the southern coast, probably as
far west as the Eskimo River, they are now
not found south of Hamilton Inlet, or Es-
quimaux Bay as it was formerly called. Even
as late as the time of Cartwright, in the latter
part of the i8th century, the Eskimos came as
far south as the region about the Straits of
Belle Isle. Armed with guns procured from
the French, the Indians, although terrified by
the Iroquois, were able to strike terror in turn
into the hearts of the Eskimos who fell back
before their onslaughts and deserted this
southern region. Battle Harbour is said to
have received its name from one of the last
battles fought by these two aboriginal races.
This could hardly have been the case, however,
for Cartwright mentions the name Battle
Harbour in his Journal, although he does not
allude to any fight there between the two races,
152
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS
and Eskimos at that time dwelt as far south as
Cape Charles.
One beautiful day the last of May when " La
Belle Marguerite " was anchored in a sheltered
little cove among Les Isles des Corneilles, I was
delighted by a cry from Mathias of " Les
sauvages ! " a cry which, in the earlier
history of French-speaking America, has times
innumerable struck terror into the heart of
the white man. Not so in this case, for les
sauvages here are no longer savage, they are
but a peaceful remnant of their old selves, and,
being well treated by the white man, treat him
well in return, as indeed they have always done
when dealt with in this unusual manner. Two
barges like our own had sailed into a neighbour-
ing cove, and, through the glass, I could see a
motley crowd of men, women, children and
dogs tumbling into canoes and going ashore.
They soon were grouped about a fire and were
evidently cooking and eating their breakfast,
which, judging from the shells seen later,
consisted of roasted eiders' eggs. A brilliant
patch of colour they made on the barren hill-
side, that contrasted well with the gray of the
lichen-covered rocks, the green of the firs, and
153
A LABRADOR SPRING
the white of the snowbanks. On visiting them
I found a camp well on the way to completion.
Each was doing his or her part, chiefly hers.
The women were gathering balsam boughs and
thatching them into thick springy beds for
their wigwams, which were to be erected in
flat places from which they had first scratched
away the moss. A man and woman were
busily engaged in scraping the hair from a seal
skin, keeping it wet in a pot of water placed
between them, the first stage in the manu-
facture of skin-boots. Children and dogs were
everywhere, and while the former showed
timidity and even terror, the latter showed
belligerency at my approach. The terror dis-
played by the little Indian children at the sight
of a stranger was as marked as was the fear-
lessness and placidity on the part of the infant-
in-arms under the same circumstances.
There seemed to be four families, five men
and five or six women young and old, seven or
eight girls and boys of all ages, and an infant,
not to mention numerous Indian dogs and a
cat.
My communications with them were in-
teresting to me, but not very satisfactory, as I
154
INDIANS SHAVING "SEAL SKIN AT THE ISLES DES CORNEILLES.
THE PAPOOSE.
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS
could not tinders tand their language, nor they
mine, with one exception in the case of an
elderly man, who from time to time ejaculated
a few words of French, and who appeared to
understand some of my broken sentences in the
same language. However, all were pleasant and
jolly, and there was considerable laughter,
probably at my expense, a laughter in which
I joined as I wished to appear sociable and
was unable to express myself in any other
way.
The faces of these people were dark olive
brown in colour, and glistened in the sun as if
they had been oiled, as I suspect was indeed
the case with some; their noses were aquiline;
their eyes were black and rather narrow and
in some set aslant as in the Mongolian type.
A few showed signs of admixture with the
white race.
While the men wore their straight black hair
rather long about the neck, the women and
girls had theirs tied up in tight oblong knots
or rolls wound with black cloth in front of the
ears, forming a conspicuous and characteristic
mark of their sex, absent only in very young
children. The women and girls all wore pic-
155
A LABRADOR SPRING
turesque caps of red and dark blue broadcloth
in alternate stripes in shape like a liberty cap.
The bands of these caps were ornamented in
bead- work which seemed to increase in extent
with the increasing years of the wearer. The
men's head gear was a more prosaic black cloth
cap with a visor. Both sexes wore either long
seal skin boots with the hair shaved off, or,
as was usually the case, low caribou skin mocca-
sins, more or less ornamented, and thick woollen
stockings, of bright primitive colours, red,
green, white, blue and purple, in stripes. These
stockings in the case of the men, were pulled up
to the knees over the trousers, which were the
ordinary cylindrical affairs of civilization, weath-
ered from black or brown, to a good neutral
tint. A rough cloth jacket or one of dirty white
canvas completed the costume in the men,
which was given a touch of colour by a red or
blue handkerchief tied about the neck and
shoulders.
The women wore stout woollen skirts, gen-
erally of dark plaid, their costume completed
above by a bodice of red or plaid, fitting snugly
about their powerful waists and shoulders, and
by a coloured handkerchief that was knotted
156
WIGWAM IN PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTION AT MINGAN.
COMPLETED WIGWAM.
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS
or folded about the neck. The infant was bound
up as all proper Indian papooses are, with a
criss-cross of lacings over an abundance of
wrappings, the whole forming a bundle that
could as easily be handled, and that made as
little fuss as a small bag of flour.
The common posture taken by these Indians
was a kneeling one, with the body resting on
the heels as shown in several of the photographs,
a position very difficult to maintain for any
length of time by a white man. This is the
same posture commonly assumed by the Jap-
anese as shown in the familiar pictures of these
people grouped about tea-trays. According to
Professor Okakura Yoshisaburo of Tokio, the
Japanese and Koreans alone of Asiatic peoples
habitually adopt this posture, while the Chinese
sit as do the Europeans.
The wigwams of this people that I saw at
various places along the coast were of three
sorts: the ordinary cotton wall-tent of the
white man, the wigwam made of straight
slender poles set in a circle and leaning in to
the centre, and the lodge of birch sticks stuck
in the ground in a circle or oval, and bent so
as to form a low rounded or oval structure,
157
A LABRADOR SPRING
strengthened by split birch saplings interwoven
at right angles. These last two forms of dwelling
were covered with canvas, I saw none
covered with skins or birch bark. Nearly all
contained small oblong sheet-iron stoves with
tiny stove-pipes that emerged between the
sticks at the top of the wigwam. Much of their
cooking seemed to be done at fires outside,
where a large pot was to be seen hanging from a
wooden bar between two poles.
These friends of mine, these " savages " at
the Isles of the Crow, were not mercenary, they
had nothing to sell, but having completed the
labours of the year in the interior in trapping for
furs, and having sold the products to the
traders, they were, like ladies and gentlemen,
travelling about visiting their friends and
spending their summer's vacation at the
sea-side. Later they would attend religious
services.
That they were making disastrous inroads on
the sea-birds, and contributing to their ex-
termination, there was no doubt, but it must
be remembered that before the arrival of the
whites, when the Indians were in larger numbers
along this coast, the sea-birds easily held their
158
WIGWAM AND INDIAN FAMILY AT PIASHTE-BAI.
INDIANS AT THE ISLES DES CORNEILLES.
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS
own. The moderate and natural pruning of the
savages did no appreciable harm. It is the
white man that has brought the birds so low by
systematic egging, and, although the eggs are
not exported in schooners to Halifax now as in
Audubon's day, a continuous robbery of the
eggs by the fishermen is still kept up along the
coast. And they can hardly be blamed, for
eiders' eggs are easily found and make delicious
eating. But, as I have said in another place, 1
it is a great pity that these men should be
allowed to " kill the goose that lays the golden
egg," and that they should not be taught like
the Norwegians to protect the birds, and take
in return for the trouble a moderate amount of
down and eggs. This might be made an in-
dustry of immense and increasing value to the
entire coast, for there is no region better adapted
to the needs of the eider duck, but as long as
the reckless methods now employed are con-
tinued, and as long as guns are so constantly
in use in the nesting season, so long will this
war of extermination go on until there are no
birds left. Would that a Labrador St. Cuth-
bert might arise who would bless and tame
1 Along the Labrador Coast, Boston, 1904, pp. 263, 264.
159
A LABRADOR SPRING
these eiders! The nesting birds, particularly
the females, are easily shot, and at Piashte-bai
I saw several of their carcasses spitted and
being dried and smoked in front of an Indian
wigwam.
We met with several similar camping parties
of Indians, although we were rather too early
in the season to find many such, but at Mingan
and at the Natashquan River we saw large
numbers of the Montagnais. At the latter
place they have a small village of wooden
houses on the right bank of the mouth of the
Great Natashquan River some four miles from
the white settlement at the Little Natashquan.
Having spent the winter in the interior, hunting
and trapping, they had arrived here in May, and
it happened on May 3ist, the day we tramped
over through the dunes and along the beach
from Natashquan, that we arrived just as the
Indians were embarking for Musquarro. This
point, some fifteen miles farther down the
coast, is an Indian mission, presided over by
a Roman Catholic priest, who goes there once a
year at this season for the purpose of celebrating
the various rites of the church feasts and
fasts, baptisms, marriages and funeral services
160
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS
for the benefit and spiritual health of these
Indians. Indeed the Musquarro missionary
had come down on the steamer with us, a
tall, austere man, a typical robe noir. It was
in 1660 that the Indians of Seven Islands re-
quested the Jesuits at Tadousac to send them a
robe noir, as they dared not go to Tadousac for
fear of the Iroquois.
At Musquarro the Indians stay several weeks
enjoying their religious life, for besides the sale
of their furs, one of the chief objects of their
visit to the coast is the attainment of a veneer
of Christianity. With this veneer they return
to the Natashquan River and ascend it in
August for another winter's work in the interior,
where, doubtless, some of the veneer wears off,
and a little paganism crops out.
Cabot says: "Under the strict injunctions
of the Gulf missionaries, the sound of the
te'uehigan, 'the ceremonial drum,' is not heard
on the summer reserve, but once beyond hearing
of the missions some remnant of the old rites
is not far to seek. On the other hand, the
church calendar is carried everywhere over
the Montagnais country; each day a pin is
moved forward and pinned through the paper
161
A LABRADOR SPRING
at the succeeding date, and feast-days and
Sundays are pretty well observed." r
The day was a dark and lowering one this
3ist of May; low-lying clouds scudded across
the sky, the sand-dunes were gray and for-
bidding, the river, over a mile wide here at the
mouth, the colour of lead. Loons were driving
north before the chilling blasts, in a continuous
stream, two or three every few minutes, and a
migrating band of tree swallows, with promise
of summer, flew joyously about the great river,
while on the bleak shore a picturesque scene
was being enacted by the Indians, the bright
colours of whose costumes relieved the sombre
gray ness of river and sky and shore.
They were all intent on their purpose, these
savages of the Natashquan, and paid scant
attention to us, as they hastened down over
the sands to the shore of the river, carrying their
packs and pots and babies, men, women and
children, dogs and even cats, all higgledy-
piggledy, and all in a great hurry to be off.
There were perhaps eight or ten families in all,
men in the prime of life, with erect, wiry
1 Labrador, by Wilfred T. Grenfell and others, New
York, 1909, pp. 224, 225.
162
LOADING THE CANOE.
THE EMBARKATION OF THE MONTAGNAIS AT NATASHQUAN FOR MUSQUARRO
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS
figures and bright, even handsome faces, most
of them of medium height but some noticeably
tall; old men with stragglng moustaches and
beards, and shrunken but still erect figures;
women of all ages, the old, wrinkled and hag-
like with dirty gray complexions, the young,
clear-eyed and plump, their smooth, olive-
brown skins tinged with rose on the cheeks,
attractive to look upon; young boys and girls
and stolid papooses. The small slinking fox-
like Indian dog, black and tan in colour, was
everywhere, each one nervously anxious not to
be left behind. Every family possessed a cat,
either carried in arms, or harnessed and straining
at the leash, or again following free like a dog,
anxious not to get its feet wet on the beach,
but evidently still more anxious to go with the
crowd in the canoes. We were told that the
fashion of cats is a recent acquisition by these
Mountaineers, and the cats were treated most
kindly as pets, in marked contrast to the treat-
ment of the dogs, who lead, indeed, a dog's life.
The costumes were like those of their relatives
at Les Isles des Corneilles, but some of the old
men wore long skirt-like coats, and had their
heads bundled up in red handkerchiefs, or
163
A LABRADOR SPRING
faded pieces of coloured cloth against the
weather. One little boy of three or four years
wore a long fur coat with skin side out, and a
hood that dangled at his back. When I tried
to photograph him he screamed with terror and
hid behind his mother. Doubtless he thought
me an Iroquois. A pitiable cripple, an aged
child with shrunken body and twisted ex-
tremities, scurried prone like a hideous great
spider over the sands, scaled the sides of a
canoe and dropped into its depths.
Pipe-smoking was well nigh universal, and
not confined to the men, nor to the adults. I
shall always remember the picture made on the
background of this bleak shore by a buxom
young matron, with the usual coquettish
rosettes of hair before her ears and her jaunty
red and blue liberty cap, a tight fitting red
woollen bodice, green plaid skirt, so short as to
fully display stout legs clad in thick woollen
stockings of red and white and in embroidered
moccasins, striding over the sands, smoking a
pipe, and bearing, as carelessly and as easily as if
they had been of feather-weight, a lusty papoose
in her arms and a large pack on her shoulders.
It was a busy and confusing scene, and one
164
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS
felt anxious that a child or bundle or dog should
not be left behind in the hurry of embarkation.
Their canoes were drawn up along the beach,
and into these they hastily threw their bundles
and deposited themselves, while the dogs and
children scrambled in as best they could. I
counted two men, four women, two small
children, a papoose, a dog and a cat in one
canoe, and the canoes were not large. The
cat looked calmly over the gunwale at the
alarmingly near-by water, the women smoked,
chatted and laughed, while the men paddled
skilfully but nonchalantly to the barge an-
chored in the stream. There were four of these
barges, and they were soon well loaded, the
sails hoisted, and away they went with the
strong wind and the swift current. Some of the
canoes were towed, others hauled up on deck,
and a belated canoe containing two boys, a
large pack and an anxious dog was picked up
without disaster by the last barge as it sailed
along. They were off for their religious feast
of the year. In religious matters at least it is
certainly a short feast and a long famine with
these Indians. Migrations, whether of bird,
beast or savage, are always interesting, and
165
A LABRADOR SPRING
the annual migration of the Montagnais Indians
is not the least so.
According to the annual report of the De-
partment of Indian Affairs published in Ottawa
in 1908, the number of Montagnais Indians for
this strip of southern Labrador coast is 694;
of these 76 come to the shore at Natashquan,
241 at Mingan and 377 at Seven Islands. The
numbers given by Hind for 1857 were 100, 500
and 300 respectively. With the exception of
a very few who are too old or feeble to travel,
all of these Indians spend the greater part of
the year in the interior, making their annual
migration to the coast in May or early in June
when the ice goes out of the rivers, and re-
turning in August. Those whose brief summer
residence is at Seven Islands generally reach
the interior by the St. Marguerite or by the
Moisie River, while the Mingan contingent
ascend the St. John River, and, by a series of
smaller streams and lakes and many portages,
cross to the Romaine, up which they travel into
the interior. The Indians coming to the mouth
of the Natashquan use that great river as a
highway into the interior.
The early return of the Indians to the wilds
166
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS
in August is partly in order to ascend the rivers
before they are frozen, and partly to be in time
for the annual migration of the caribou, but
it is only in the north that this migration takes
place on a large scale, and here the Nascaupees
spear the animals in great numbers in the lakes
and rivers. Rabbits, ptarmigan, spruce par-
tridges, trout, ducks and geese help out the
larders, but the Montagnais are becoming more
and more dependent on the flour and other
provisions that they obtain in barter for their
furs at the Hudson's Bay Company's Posts.
Hind, quoting a former officer of the Hudson's
Bay Company, says of the Montagnais: " Their
country then abounded with the deer [caribou].
Porcupine were so numerous, that they used to
find and kill (when travelling) a daily suffi-
ciency for their food without searching for
them. Beaver were also plenty, and the white
partridge [ptarmigan] seldom failed to visit
our shores yearly, about the commencement of
December, even from the heights of Hudson's
Straits. While at present the deer are ex-
tremely scarce, porcupine almost wholly extinct,
beaver very rarely to be got, and the white
partridge is seen only every third and fourth
167
A LABRADOR SPRING
year. Starvation was in those days unknown
both to Montagnais and Nasquapees, but, these
eighteen years past, some annually fall victims.
At the time when the porcupine were so very
numerous in the forest all over the country, and
even in the woods lining the seashore, an Indian
would then consider 50 pounds of flour a
superfluous weight to carry with him to the
woods where he intended to pass the winter,
from his certainty of finding as many porcu-
pines as he chose to kill, and other animals fit
for food in proportion; but at present they
have to carry in as much flour as they can, and
those who penetrate far inland must carefully
economize their provisions until such time as
they reach the large lakes where fish are to be
found. Another and very serious circumstance
the Indian has to contend against, is the yearly
decline of the furred animals to what they
formerly Jiave been. With all his labours,
trapping and hunting, he seldom can pay his
debt at the Company's posts, and most often
only meets part of his expenses, which are
yearly on the increase."
This decline in game is chiefly to be attributed
to the extensive fires already mentioned, which
168
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS
have destroyed the forest and soil alike, and
partly to the excessive killing by fire-arms.
The chief occupation of the long season in the
interior from August to May or June, besides
the eternal search for food, is trapping of the
fur-bearing animals, martens, beaver, lynx,
fox, muskrat, mink and otter. In the pursuit
of these and others of the family the Indians
cover great distances, going at times not only
as far as the Hamilton and Northwest River,
the southern boundary of the hunting grounds
of their cousins the Nascaupees, but even at
times to the waters of the George River in
Ungava. Occasionally, if they have had a bad
season, and they are starving, a few come out
for supplies in April, dragging their canoes over
the ice or leaving them behind. Occasionally
this early return to the coast takes place on
account of their early success in obtaining a
full supply of furs.
During the winter they live in the conical
wigwams already described. In case of death
the body is usually brought to the coast to be
given Christian burial, and the little graveyard
by the Indian church at Mingan is crowded with
169
A LABRADOR SPRING
wooden crosses, on which are written or rudely
carved the names of the dead.
At Mingan I had the best opportunity to
observe these Indians as we spent a week
there from the i4th to the 2ist of June, close
to the Hudson's Bay Company's Post at the
house of the old salmon- fisher of the place. The
Indians had not all come out of the woods, but
new families were arriving every day. The
large kitchen of the salmon-fisher's house was
an attractive place and was visited in the
evening by fur traders, salmon-fishers from the
mouth of the Mingan River, the clerks from
the H. B. C. Post and Indians. The old salmon-
fisher himself was a picturesque figure, tall
and strong, slim and wiry, but slightly bent
with age; his beard was long and white, his
eyes blue and kindly. His wife was a dark,
black-eyed woman, bright and intelligent, and
they had a large family of children of all ages,
speaking French among themselves, Indian
frequently, and English as occasion demanded.
The kitchen was a long, low-studded room whose
centre of attraction was a large iron stove always
filled with glowing logs. Suspended from the
middle of the ceiling above the stove were
170
OUR HOST, THE SALMON-FISHER AT MINGAN, AND HIS OLD
COMPANION.
MR. J. A. WILSON, FACTOR AT THE H. B. C. POST AT MINGAN, ON THE STEPS
OF THE COMPANY'S HOUSE BUILT BY MR. DONALD ALEXANDER SMITH,
NOW LORD STRATHCONA AND MONT ROYAL.
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS
wooden racks, generally decorated with drying
stockings, mittens and moccasins. On hooks
on the rafters were five guns of various makes
and ages, the most formidable of which was a
great muzzle-loader with a barrel three and a
half feet long. Long benches were placed
around the room for the convenience of the
family and the visitors, and the conversation
in the three different tongues was chiefly about
salmon, although it may have wandered to
other channels in the case of the blushing clerk
and the eldest daughter.
Mingan has an interesting history. The
company of the One Hundred Associates, also
called the company of New France, was founded
in 1627 by Cardinal Richelieu and five partners.
Under them was held the " Terre ferme de
Mingan," which was described as extending
from Cape Cormorant on the west to "La
Grand Anse " or "La Baie des Espagnols " on
the east, and two leagues back. This eastern
boundary has been liberally interpreted by the
company as Bradore, while the crown recently
contended that it was Agwanus. In 1661, or
nine years before the Hudson's Bay Company
received its charter, a charter was granted to
171
A LABRADOR SPRING
Sieur Bissot de la Riviere for this seigniory of
Mingan or Labrador Company as it was also
called, and to this company the H. B. C. pays
rent. The following notice is posted at Mingan :
"Notice is hereby given, that the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany are the Lessees of the following section of land in
the Seigniory of Mingan, from the Labrador Company,
viz.,
" From the west bank of the Mingan River running in
a Northwesterly direction along the sea-coast to the
east bank of the creek commonly known as Patterson's
Brook, situated about half way between Long-Point of
Mingan and Mingan proper, and running due North, a
distance of two miles from the sea-coast.
" Any person found trespassing in the above defined land
will be prosecuted according to law.
"HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY
"per M. R. GRAHAME."
To avoid this rule and yet be able to do
business with the Indians, an independent fur-
trader has built a store house on piles between
tides near the Indian village, and carries on a
trade with the Indians from a point he claims
to be on the high seas, and therefore outside
of the Seigniory! Our Belgian friend accom-
plishes the same purpose by anchoring his
boat in the sound by Mingan, and trades with
the Indians who bring out their furs in canoes ;
"all is fair in trade and war! "
172
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS
Hanging in the vestibule of the little office
of the Post were several pairs of snow-shoes,
discarded for a brief season between snows.
The Labrador snow-shoe or racquette is almost
everywhere tailless or nearly so; in fact their
outline is almost circular or only slightly ovoid,
but they make up in breadth what they lack in
length. Some of them, however, have short
rounded tails and are appropriately called
" beaver- tails." The absence of tails makes
progress through scrubby woods and brush
easier than where the ordinary elongated shoes
are used, and the Labrador racquettes are par-
ticularly adapted to the quick turns needed by
those who hunt and tend traps. On that
account they are very useful w r hen one is follow-
ing and studying birds, for with these shoes
one can easily turn completely around in a
small space, while with the long ones a con-
siderable amount of backing and filling is
necessary, as well as careful attention to the
tails of the shoes, during which process the birds
may be lost to sight. I have found them very
satisfactory.
One of the buildings of the Hudson's Bay
Company here at Mingan was built about 60
173
A LABRADOR SPRING
years ago under the direction of Mr. Donald
Alexander Smith, who was then the factor at
this Post. Mr. Smith is now Lord Strathcona
and Mont Royal, the head of this rich and
powerful Company of Hudson's Bay. This
historic house is not used now, as a larger one
has since been built for the factor. It is a
small single story square house, painted white,
standing just to the eastward of the tiny office
building, its platform surrounded by a neat
white fence. The dark coloured roof with the
usual upcurved edges is relieved by white
dormer windows. A great knocker adorns the
door, which has two small panes of glass set
near the top. Lord Strathcona began his
service for the Honourable Company as an
apprentice at Rigolet in 1838, and served for
thirteen years on the Labrador coast. I
could not help picturing the possible future of
the young blue-eyed, fair-haired clerk, but a
year out from Scotland, who was tactfully
managing the black-eyed, dark- haired Indians
at the store-house, and I was amused to hear
him conversing with them in their own language
with a broad Scotch accent. He seemed to be
particularly successful in his sales of a calicc
174
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS
that had won the hearts of the women, a real
chef d'ceuvre in the calico line, for it was purple
on one side and olive green with yellow spots
on the other. The sales proceeded leisurely
amid much talk and laughter.
Like the Indians I enjoyed wandering about
the store-house, for it was an interesting place
and contained everything that heart could
desire in these regions. Furs alone were missing,
for these are the medium of exchange, and for
these the store-goods were bartered by the
Indians, and the furs are transported to Lon-
don. I should dearly have liked to be present
during the trading process between the factor
of the Post and the Indians, but I was told that
the rules of the Company required that no out-
sider should be present not even another
Indian. The beaver skin is still the standard
of exchange at this Post in terms of which all
other furs are reckoned.
At the trading in the store, however, I was
often present. The Indians are trusted im-
plicitly, and are allowed to wander about the
store, even in the absence of the clerk, and
pick out what they like. Only once, the factor
told me, was this trust misplaced, and it was
175
A LABRADOR SPRING
only necessary to suggest that it might be the
rule in future to lock the store except when the
clerk was present. The square deal is ap-
preciated by civilized and savage alike.
When one thinks of the treachery and deceit
that have been practised by the whites in
America in their dealings with the Indians and
of the degradation and death wrought by the
white man's cupidity, his diseases and his
whiskey, one can not but be filled with shame
and remorse, that this, the noblest race of
primitive men, should have been treated so
vilely. The unusually fine character of the
unspoiled Indian we are discovering when it is
too late, although Catlin pointed it out long
ago, and for many years the inhuman saying
has been flippantly repeated that there is "No
good Indian but a dead one."
In former times the Indians coming from the
interior erected their wigwams at Mingan near
the trading post. Hind says. " Four hundred
Montagnais had pitched their tents at Mingan,
a fortnight before we arrived, there to dispose
of their furs, the produce of the preceding
winter's hunt, and to join in the religious
ceremonies of the Roman Catholic . church
176
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS
under the ministration of Pere Arnaud."
This was in July, 1861. In 1889 the Hudson's
Bay Company, in order to make the place as
attractive as possible for the Indians, and as
an inducement to bring their furs to this Post,
built a small wooden house for the Indians and
another three years later. These proved so
attractive that the rest of the village was put
up, we were told, in the years 1901 to 1903.
However successful these houses may have
been in stimulating trade, the effect on the
health of the Indians has proved far otherwise.
Infectious diseases, such as influenza and
tuberculosis, were unknown among the primi-
tive Indians, who have therefore developed no
immunity, but, on the contrary, are especially
susceptible to them and quickly succumb.
When infected from the whites, they retire,
like all ignorant people under the same cir-
cumstances, to their houses, and crowd to-
gether in close overheated rooms with doors and
windows shut. The houses become therefore
hotbeds of infection, and the course of the
disease is hastened to a fatal termination.
Hind, writing of his visit in 1861, records
the fact that the Indians who lingered on the
177
A LABRADOR SPRING
coast soon lost their energy and bodily strength
and became prone to attacks of influenza,
consumption and rheumatism. He speaks of
a party of fifteen Nascaupees who had visited
the coast at Seven Islands two years before,
to see the robe noir. Seven of these had died,
four had gone back to their own wilds, and, of
the four that remained, all were very weak
and one died while he was there. Hind at-
tributed the illness and deaths on the coast
to the unaccustomed climate, not recognizing
the true cause of infection from the whites.
But on the coast, he says, " the damp pene-
trates to his bones; he sits shivering over a
smoky fire, loses heart, and sinks under the
repeated attacks of influenza brought on by
changes in the temperature."
When my profession was discovered by the
Indians, I was in frequent demand, and was
asked to prescribe for several patients whom I
found to be far advanced in consumption. A
pleasanter case to remember was that of a
young Indian who told me that for two months
he could not see out of one of his eyes; it
caused him no pain whatever, and his only
regret was that he could see the girls only
178
THE LAST LEAF ON THE TREE, SAID TO BE IO4 YEARS OLD.
THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS
through one eye instead of two. My interpreter
for this gallant speech was one of the daughters
of the salmon-fisher. As there was some slight
redness of the eye, but more for the sake of
giving the Indian the satisfaction of treatment,
I presented him with some tablets for an eye
wash. A few days later he reported that he
had begun to see again in that eye !
That some of these people manage to survive
the onslaught of the white man's germs of
disease and live to a considerable age, was
illustrated by an aged squaw at Mingan who
was said to be 104 years old. The factor,
Mr. Wilson, told me that up to within a few
years she had spent the long winters with her
people in the interior, but that increasing
infirmities had at last compelled her to give
up this strenuous life. She appeared to be
still active mentally, and her small black eyes
twinkled with intelligence in her sadly wizened
face. When she walked she was bent like a
bow, so that her chin almost touched her knees,
and she reminded me of some Cape Cod women
who are said never to die, but in the end to
dry up and blow away like dead leaves.
179
CHAPTER VIII
WINGS AND FEET IN THE AIR AND UNDER WATER
" Mark how the feathered tenants of the flood,
With grace of motion that might scarcely seem
Inferior to angelical, prolong
Their curious pastime! "
Wordsworth.
'"I" -V HE good priest at Esquimaux Point said
that the devout could see the sign of the
cross in the birds as they fly in the heavens.
Our ideas of the flying birds may indeed be
a conventional one, for their flight is generally
so rapid that our impressions are often con-
fused and incorrect unless our attention has
been particularly called to some point. Thus
in the case of the feet, artists and taxidermists
alike generally represent soaring doves and
eagles with their feet drawn up in front, and
even excellent observers, who have not paid
especial attention to the subject, are apt to
agree in the accuracy of this stereotyped and
conventional attitude. Now a little careful
180
WINGS AND FEET
study of the familiar pigeon of our streets
shows that in the case of the dove this view is
an erroneous one. On rising from the ground
the pigeon draws up its feet in front, it is true,
but, as it gathers headway, the feet are drawn
back and extended under the tail. In this
position it soars or executes any flight more
than a few yards. When it flies but a short
distance it does not have time, or it does not
take the trouble, to draw up its feet behind, but
carries them in front to be ready to drop them
when it alights. In quick turns I have seen
them drop their feet a short distance from their
tail, and once I saw one drop its legs so that
they hung straight down for a few seconds,
and were then extended behind again. In
alighting the feet are thrown forward, generally
at the last moment.
In the case of the eagle and other birds of
prey the fact that the feet are carried behind
under the tail has been observed over and over
again, yet when this fact was announced in the
pages of the Ibis in 1894 and 1895 there was
at first a hint of protest, but numerous good
observers confirmed the statement.
When the new United States twenty dollar
181
A LABRADOR SPRING
gold piece appeared in 1907 with the design by
St. Gaudens of an eagle in flight, its legs behind,
objections were at once made. A writer in the
Boston Transcript said: " Whoever saw an
eagle in flight with its legs trailing behind it
like a heron? " thus voicing the popular and
conventional idea that the legs are carried in
front. Although I have seen many wild hawks
flying with their feet behind, sometimes trailing
them with a distinct gap between the tail and
the legs, for all the world like the St. Gaudens'
design, my most satisfactory views have been
those of ospreys at Bristol, Rhode Island,
where the birds are semi-domesticated, for
they build their nests on tall poles, erected for
their convenience in barn yards, and allow
inspection at close range. Here there can be
no question but that they carry the feet behind
in flight.
Owls also dispose of their legs in the same
manner as I have observed in a great horned
owl confined in a flying cage, and in a wild
barred owl seen flying about its nest.
The same habits exist among the pheasants,
grouse and partridges. I have not been able
to see the feet in the rapid flight of the ruffed
182
WINGS AND FEET
grouse and bob-white, but in the introduced
ring pheasant I once watched a flock of young
birds in flight whose only partly grown tails
did not conceal the long legs of the birds that
extended backwards. In side views of the
splendid cock pheasants I have also seen the
legs extended behind.
In the case of the water birds that abound on
the Labrador coast it is easy to see that the
legs are carried behind, and this is the universal
habit among all groups of this order. The
puffin and sea pigeon with their brilliant scarlet
feet make it plain as to their position in flight.
The gulls habitually carry their feet behind,
and in quick turns generally drop their feet
pressed together, suggesting their use as a centre-
board, for, as in a centre-board boat, quick turns
with the board up are impossible, with it
down these turns become easy. Gulls have also
a habit of sometimes drawing up one or both
feet in front. Sometimes the feet carried
forward show plainly, at other times they are
buried all but the toes which appear as dark
nobs, and again they are entirely concealed in
the feathers of the breast so that the bird
appears to be destitute of feet. Birds with one
183
A LABRADOR SPRING
foot concealed in front and one carried behind
appear to have only one foot. It is possible
that the birds do this to keep the feet warm,
but I have observed the habit in mild weather.
The dexterity with which the herons manage
their ungainly legs, stretching them behind in
flight, is familiar to all. I once saw a great
blue heron attacked in mid-air from the rear
by a screaming tern. The heron was so startled
that it dropped for a moment its long legs, and
stretched out and around its snake-like neck.
It may be stated as a rule to which, as far as I
know, there are no exceptions, that all water
birds carry their feet behind in flight.
It is probable that parrots, cuckoos and
kingfishers all carry their feet behind, but very
few observations have been made in these
difficult cases.
In the woodpeckers the feet are I believe
carried in front, while instantaneous photo-
graphs of humming birds show that in hovering,
at least, the feet of this bird are also carried
in front.
In the great order of perching birds it would
seem natural that the feet should be carried
in front as they fly from place to place, so as
184
WINGS AND FEET
to be ready to seize their perch, and as far as
I know this is always the case. The crow is our
largest common perching bird, but its black
colour of plumage and feet alike make it
difficult to observe the point in question. A
crow in rising on the wing often lets its feet
hang at first, and then draws them up in front
in an exceedingly leisurely manner. When
well under way the feet are close against the
breast, and are held there I am inclined to
believe, even in long flights, for I have several
times observed crows from a point on a sea
beach where I could follow their flight for a
long distance, and, as they passed me, their
feet were always in front. The feet are some-
times dropped slightly so that daylight can
be seen between them and the breast, or held
so closely to the breast that only the clenched
toes can be seen, and these in some cases are
entirely buried in the feathers. If the bird
had only been so obliging as to have white
feet, these observations would have been much
easier.
I have also seen the feet when the birds were
in full flight in the case of swallows, blackbirds,
robins, the familiar house sparrow of the
185
A LABRADOR SPRING
streets and in other perching birds, and they
were always held in front.
The modern study of birds by means of
powerful prismatic binoculars and occasionally
of telescopes reveals much that was concealed
from the students that depended on the naked
eye and the loaded gun, and those who were
brought up in the " collecting age," unless they
have fully adopted modern methods, are apt
to look with some suspicion on those who use
glasses. The student who leaves the gun at
home or keeps it judiciously in the background,
not only sees more with these glasses, but also
with the naked eye, for the birds soon recognize
the difference between the man with the gun
and the man with the glasses, and behave
accordingly, and this is a point that the old-
time student does not appreciate. For years
I never got nearer than a long gun-shot from
an adult turnstone and never observed him
for any length of time at that distance, but,
since adopting modern methods, I have spent
many interesting half-hours with these birds,
at times so close that I could not focus my
glasses on them, and have watched every detail
of their actions in turning over seaweed and
186
WINGS AND FEET
stones. The case of the Ipswich sparrow, a
bird that breeds only at Sable Island and visits
the sandy Atlantic shores in winter, is a striking
illustration of the difference in the two methods.
Formerly ornithologists made visits to the sea-
shore dunes in late fall and early spring, and
considered themselves fortunate if they flushed
half a dozen of these birds at long range in a
day's tramp, and succeeded in shooting two
or three on the wing. Now the student watches
them within a few yards, and is able to note all
the peculiarities of markings and habits. I
have tried both methods and I know whereof
I speak. In a comparatively unexplored
region like Labrador, however, it is well to
have two strings to one's bow.
Being burdened somewhat with a New Eng-
land conscience, I am glad I began bird-study
before the days of hand-books and Audubon
societies, in the good old times when a gun was
used for identification, for I think that course
of study gives one a grounding that it is
difficult to get otherwise. Nowadays there is
no excuse for the beginner to use a gun, and
there is no need of multiplying collections of
bird-skins, but it should be impressed on all
187
A LABRADOR SPRING
bird-students and their name is legion, both
masculine and feminine that it is far better to
be silent or confess ignorance than to affirm
knowledge unless that knowledge is based on
sound observation. It is to be regretted that
too many ardent bird-students are not only
lacking in powers of observation and in ap-
preciation of the scientific value of truth, but
also that they possess imaginations which
lead them to see what the text-books have given
them to expect. Above all they should avoid
embarrassing ornithologists by recording in
print imperfect and erroneous observations, and
they should remember that by so doing they
discredit not only themselves but the whole class
of gunless observers.
Turn we now, as dear old Professor Shaler
used to say, to another subject. Instantaneous
photography shows that birds extend the
bastard wing just as they alight. The bastard
wing consists of a few stiff feathers attached to
the so-called thumb on the front edge of the
bird's wing. Ordinarily it lies flat and is not
seen, but just as the bird alights from a flight
it is extended so as to be partially detached
from the main wing. In the domestic pigeon
188
WINGS AND FEET
I have often observed this with the naked eye,
although I hesitate to record this observation
for fear that someone who has been reading
Munsterberg will say that I merely visualized
what the photograph made me expect to see.
It is an observation, however, that any one
can make whose eyesight is ordinarily good. A
bird comes sailing down from a roof, and, as it
approaches the ground, the bastard wing
becomes distinctly prominent, the whole wings
are then flapped rapidly, during which it is
impossible to observe them distinctly, and the
bird drops to its feet. The natural explanation
of this action of the bastard wing is that it is
used to check the progress of the bird, to back
water so to speak, but the bastard wing is so
small that its power in this direction must be
extremely slight. One might suggest, therefore,
that the present bastard wing is but a vestige
of its former self, and dates back to a time
when its use was of value, or, to go back still
farther in the family tree, one might suppose,
perhaps fancifully, that the bird thus puts out
its thumb as did its reptilian ancestors to
grasp the perch to which it is speeding.
The Labrador coast is a good place to study
189
A LABRADOR SPRING
diving birds, for there are many and of numerous
kinds to be found there. It is evident that these
birds may be divided into two main classes,
those that habitually use the wings alone under
water, and those that use the feet alone.
Those that use the wings make ready before
they disappear below the surface by spreading
or flopping them out, while the feet-users keep
the wings tightly clapped to the sides, and they
often execute graceful curves in diving, some-
times leaping clear of the water.
The puffin is a good example of the former
class, and its wings are plainly to be seen in
vigorous use as it goes under water, and it often
comes out of the waves flying, only to return
to the denser element again with the same
method of propulsion. All the other members
of the auk family dive in the same way. I
have twice had excellent opportunities to watch
dovkies or little auks swimming close at hand
under water, and plainly saw them use their
wings. The great auk, long since extinct, with
wings reduced to flipper-like proportions, doubt-
less advanced rapidly through the water by
the action of these extremities only, for the feet
in the living members of this group are not
190
ESCORT AMONG THE INDIANS AT MINGAN.
WINGS AND FEET
used for propulsion under water. The penguins,
although entirely distinct from the auks, fly
through the water with their extended flipper-
like wings, and, from the testimony of those
who have watched them in tanks, it is learned
that the feet are not used. Thus Lea x says of
these curious birds: "Their flight may be
watched and studied in the large glass tanks
at the Zoo. . . . With short, rapid strokes of
its paddle wings it darts through the water
leaving a trail of glistening bubbles behind,
and shoots forward with the speed of a fish, turn-
ing more rapidly than almost any bird of the
air by the strokes of the wing alone, the legs
floating apparently inert in a line with the
gleaming body, or giving an occasional upward
kick to force it to greater depths."
One is apt to assume that " the trail of
glistening bubbles " which comes from a diving
bird are the expired air bubbles, but I am
inclined to think that most if not all of this
air is expelled from the feathers in order to
make diving more easy or even possible. Some
diving birds have the ability to sink gradually
out of sight in the water with apparently little
1 John Lea, The Romance of Bird Life, 1909, pp. 202-203.
191
A LABRADOR SPRING
or no muscular effort, yet these same birds
shot on the wing float on the surface when dead
as lightly as feathers. Each body feather is
governed by tiny muscles, and by their action
the feathers can be depressed so that the large
amount of air normally held between them is
expelled, and the body loses its buoyancy. I
was interested to try the experiment on a
recently killed eider on this trip on the Labrador
coast, and found that while the dead body
floated high in the water, by expelling the air
from the feathers and replacing it with water
the bird sank so deeply that only a small
fraction appeared above the surface. This
simple experiment, therefore, explains the other-
wise mysterious power of some water birds to
sink in the water without apparent leg or wing
action. After rising to the surface from diving,
birds usually shake themselves as if to admit
air to their feathers.
Among the ducks, old squaws, scoters, and
eiders, all common Labrador birds, plainly use
their wings in diving. Once, while watching some
old squaws sporting in the water and chasing each
other on or just below the surface, I distinctly
saw the wing of one of them cut the water from
192
WINGS AND FEET
below like the fin of a great fish, and I have
seen a surf scoter near at hand fly under water.
It is a curious thing, when one stops to think
of it, that some species of ducks like those
named above should vigorously fly under
water, while other ducks should keep their
wings close to their sides and shoot about
under water by the action of their feet alone,
yet this seems to be the case. The redhead and
the canvas back, the scaups, the whistler or
golden-eye and the bufflehead all seem to dis-
regard their wings under water and use the
feet alone. This is also true of the mergansers,
who always dive with the wings pressed closely
to the sides. Edmund Selous, who has watched
water birds from vantage points on the cliffs
of the Shetland Islands, says: " The merganser
dives like the shag or cormorant though the
curved leap is a little less vigorous and swims
like them, without using the wings. His food
being fish, he usually swims horizontally,
sometimes only just beneath the surface, and,
as he comes right into the shallow inlets, where
the water almost laps the shore, he can often
be watched thus gliding in rapid pursuit." '
a Bird Watching, London, 1901, p. 153.
193
A LABRADOR SPRING
The group of river ducks, on the other hand,
which includes the teals, mallard, black duck
and wood duck, are not skilled in diving but
obtain their food by dipping their heads and
necks below the surface, while their tails point
to the zenith in the ardour of the pursuit.
These birds as well as geese and brant do,
however, occasionally dive in an awkward
manner, and in so doing use both feet and
wings.
The family of the loons and grebes is a curious
one and its members are characterized by
possessing very muscular legs, the thighs short
and stout, the lower legs long and provided with
keels for the attachment of powerful muscles.
The grebes have also a very large knee-cap.
In these respects ihe group resembles the fossil
Hesperornis, a toothed bird with wings repre-
sented by mere vestiges, but one that was
evidently strongly specialized for propulsion
through the water by means of the feet alone.
Now loons and grebes are expert divers, and,
although they occasionally have been seen to
use the wings when hard pressed, as a rule they
appear to swim, and that too very rapidly,
under water with the feet alone. Young loons,
194
WINGS AND FEET
however, scramble away tinder water, using
both feet and wings.
Cormorants are famed for their ability to
swim under water with great swiftness, and
domesticated ones are used at the present day
by the Chinese as catchers of fish, while a ring
around the neck prevents the bird from profiting
by its labours. Both when confined in tanks
and wild in the sea this curious bird uses its
feet alone for propulsion. Selous * says of
these birds: " Others, whose young were still
with them on the nest, although full fledged
and almost as big as themselves, plunged,
attended by these into the water. ... It
was easy to follow these birds as they swam
midway between the surface of the water and
the white pebbled floor of the cavern, and I
am thus able to confirm my previous con-
viction that the feet alone are used by them in
swimming, without any help from the wings,
which are kept all the while closed." The
American coot or mud-hen, a bird of the
rail family, is a graceful diver, and, like the
cormorant, it keeps its wings close to the
*The bird Watcher in the Shetlands. London. 1905.
P. 50.
195
A LABRADOR SPRING
body. Selous, 1 however, says of the English
moorhen, another rail, that he " may follow no
fixed plan in his diving, for I have certainly
seen him using his feet only under water, and
I believe I have also seen him using his wings."
Very young spotted sandpipers, the familiar
teter-tail of beaches fresh and salt, sometimes
dive when hard pressed, and in so doing use
both wings and feet. The water ousel uses both
wings and feet under water.
It would seem, therefore, that with a few
exceptions diving birds tend to specialize in
two directions, either towards the use of
the feet alone, or of the wings alone. The
question naturally arises as to which line is
superior, which has produced the swiftest
diving bird, the line that has led to the
use of the feet alone or that which has led to
the use of the wings alone? It is evident that
a method of diving which leaves the wings
unimpaired in size or form for the use in the
air is a desirable one, and that this is possible
where the feet alone are used. In most fishes
propulsion is from the rear by means of the
tail, for the pectoral fins, which correspond to
1 Bird Watching. London, 1901, p. 156.
196
PIERRE OF PIASHTE-BAI AND THE BEAVER, SHOWING WEBBED
HIND FOOT OF THE BEAVER, AND " SKIN BOOTS " OF MAN.
WINGS AND FEET
the birds' wings, are used chiefly for balancing,
and when the fish swims fast these fins are
kept close to the sides. Among mammals the
cetaceans have developed greatest speed in
diving and swimming under water, and here
also the tail is the propulsive power, while the
anterior extremities are used chiefly for balanc-
ing. The beaver, with its posterior extremities
alone webbed, uses these only in swimming
under water. The modern screw-propeller is
superior to the old side-wheeler.
In hesperornis the wing is a mere vestige,
but the leg bones are of great strength. It is
evident that hesperornis pursued its prey under
water by means of the feet alone, and that
through many generations it had gradually
lost the use of the wings, which must have
been, therefore, a hindrance rather than a
help in its subaqueous flight. It had long since
given up aerial flight. Loons and grebes, how-
ever, although apparently allied to hesperornis,
do at times, as we have seen, use their wings in
addition to their feet under water, yet it seems
to me probable from the evidence adduced that
as a rule they progress by the feet alone. The
young appear to use the wings as well as the
197
A LABRADOR SPRING
feet habitually. These facts would seem to
indicate that the method of posterior propulsion
in loons and grebes has not been long developed
nor permanently fixed, and that the young
show the ancestral or primitive form of loco-
motion. The close resemblance in the legs of
the loons and grebes on the one hand, and
hesperornis on the other, would suggest either
a case of parallelism from similar functions, or
that they were all descended from the same
stock. In the " Birds of Essex County " ' I
spoke of the loon as " approaching the wingless
conditions." The present studies would, how-
ever, lead me to believe that the loon, in per-
fecting the method of posterior propulsion
under water, has no need to reduce the size of
its wings for use there. It can, however, with
advantage increase their size, provided it does
not use them under water, for the wings are
now so small that on calm days it is unable to
rise into the air.
Cormorants on the other hand have for so
long a time perfected the posterior propulsion
method that they do not use the wings under
water even apparently when young. In con-
1 Birds of Essex County, Cambridge, 1905, p. 80.
198
WINGS AND FEET
sequence they have been able to retain large
wings for aerial flight. That they can develop
great speed under water and are very expert
fish-catchers is well known.
The other line of e-volution, the subaqueous
flight by anterior propulsion, or by the use of
the wings alone, reaches its height in the
penguins, and probably in the extinct great
auk, two birds widely separated genetically
but converging to the same result in this par-
ticular. Both birds in developing speed under
water by the use of the wings, reduced them
in size to the proportions of seal's flippers,
most markedly so in the case of the penguins,
thereby showing that large wings are not only
unnecessary, but even a hindrance in suba-
queous flight. In attaining this end they were
obliged to sacrifice aerial flight. This the
penguins were able to do owing to the absence
of land mammals in their antarctic breeding
grounds. The same conditions existed for the
greak auk at its chief breeding place in this
country on Funk Island, until the arrival of
that most destructive land mammal, the white
man.
The diving petrel of the Straits of Magellan
199
A LABRADOR SPRING
is a bird that appears to be in danger of sacri-
ficing aerial for subaqueous flight, and illus-
trates the inconveniences of this line of evolu-
tion. Nichol * says of this bird, after describing
its short flights in the air and its diving: " In
appearance it reminds one forcibly of the little
auk. . . . The wings are very small and weak,
the bird, doubtless, is losing the power of
flight."
In the case of the existing auks and of the
other birds that habitually use the wings alone
in diving, it would be interesting to determine
whether they are able to progress under water
as fast as those birds that use the feet alone,
for the auks are trying to make the same tool
work for two purposes, to propel them in the
air as well as in the water. One is impressed
with the imperfection of their wings for both
purposes, when one watches a puffin en-
deavouring to get out of the way of a steamer.
First the bird dives and flies under \\ater.
Then in alarm it rises to the surface and at-
tempts to ascend into the air on its wings, but
unless there is a strong wind to act on its small
aeroplanes, it soon gives up the attempt and
1 Three Voyages of a Naturalist, London, 1908, p. 160.
200
WINGS AND FEET
/
flops down into the water again. Although it
would be difficult to prove, it would seem to me
reasonable to suppose that the compressed
pointed body of the loon, with the air expelled
from beneath the flattened feathers, would
make faster progress by feet action alone, than
by the wings or by the wings and feet com-
bined, unless the wings were reduced to the
proportions of flippers. It is possible that the
occasional use of the wings observed in these
birds may be explained by fright, which causes
them to " lose their heads," and return to the
ancestral form of progression, to a reptilian
scramble so to speak, without increasing the
speed of their progress. It could also be argued
that the wings of loons are now so reduced in
size that their use in emergencies under water is
a help and not a hindrance. Experiments on cap-
tive birds in tanks might determine these facts. 1
persistent but futile efforts of the loons to rise
from the water in flight during a calm on the approach of
the steamer as described in the second chapter is, it seems
to me, another illustration of the return to primitive
methods during extreme fright. Aerial flight was doubt-
less practised by the ancestors of the loons long before
subaqueous flight, and in subaqueous flight it is reasonable
to suppose that quadrupedal action antedated that of the
feet alone.
201
A LABRADOR SPRING
That loons are able to progress faster under
water than on the surface I have concluded
from such observations as the following: '
" Thus on one occasion I was watching a loon
swimming about, dipping his head under
water from time to time on the lookout for
food. The cry of another loon was heard at
a distance and my friend immediately dove
in the direction of the other, and, appearing
on the surface for a moment, dove again and
again until he reached his companion. At
another time on the Maine coast while watching
a flock of young Red-breasted Mergansers
swimming off the shore, I noticed a movement
as of a large fish on the water outside. The
mergansers at once flapped in alarm along the
surface of the water towards the shore where
I was hidden, and I soon saw that a loon was
chasing them, following them under water."
Theoretically a loon should be able to go faster
under water than on the surface, for on the
surface the bird is retarded by the waves in
front and the eddies behind, and the faster it
goes the more it is retarded by these factors.
The subject of the resistance of submerged
1 Birds of Essex County, 1905, p. 80.
202
WINGS AND FEET
bodies has been exhaustively studied by naval
architects, and it has been shown that a prop-
erly shaped body completely submerged under
ideal circumstances with the wave eliminated
meets with little resistance besides friction.
The fact that a loon when swimming rapidly
on the surface is apt to depress its body in the
water so that its back is awash seems to favour
this contention. It may be argued that the
bird does this to avoid observation or to escape
being shot, but it certainly swims faster when
thus submerged. Under water the diving bird
has a great advantage in being able to assume
a shape best adapted to cleaving the liquid
medium.
Incidentally it may be remarked that the
loon, in perfecting its legs for use under water,
has disabled itself for walking on the land,
but as it usually builds its nest on or close to
the water, it can well afford to sacrifice ter-
restrial locomotion.
The combined use of wings and feet, a
reptilian form of progression, would naturally
be found among birds that had not fully
specialized in either direction. Among living
birds the cormorant and the penguin represent
203
A LABRADOR SPRING
the extremes of specialization for the posterior
and anterior extremity respectively. Where
either habit is not firmly established we should
expect at times a return to the primitive
method, and we should expect to find it in
young birds. This is well shown in the case
of the loon. We should expect to find it at
all times in behinners in the art of diving, i.e.,
among birds whose ancestry in the diving line
is not a long one. The mallard, the black duck,
the moorhen, the spotted sand piper and the
water ouzel may perhaps illustrate this con-
tention.
In conclusion the following tentative in-
ferences from these preliminary studies on
diving birds may be set down.
i st. That progression by both the wings and
feet under water in diving birds is the primitive
method, and is therefore to be looked for
among beginners and young birds.
2d. That specialization towards the use of
the wings alone leads to a diminution in the
size of the wings, and finally to a form of bird
that is flightless in the air; for wings of flipper
proportions, too small for aerial flight, are
more efficient than large wings for subaqueous
204
DWARFED SPRUCES DEAD AND ALIVE AT ESQUIMAUX ISLAND.
ANCIENT LARCH AT QUATACHOO.
WINGS AND FEET
flight, as witness the great auk and pen-
guins.
3d. That specialization towards the use of
the feet alone is probably best adapted for the
most rapid progression under water, and this
method may leave the wings undiminished in
size for use in the air. The apparent exception,
hesperornis, with powerful feet but with wings
degenerated to vestiges through disuse, serves
but to confirm the inference of the superiority
under water of feet action alone.
205
CHAPTER IX
SOME LABRADOR TREES
" Arbores magnae diu crescunt;
Una hora extirpantur."
Curtius.
T^NOS A. MILLS 1 has recently described
"^ the incidents in the life of a giant yellow
pine, in the stump of which he counted 1047
rings. From this he concluded that the year
of the great tree's birth was somewhere in
the ninth century after Christ. A long and
careful dissection and study of the fallen
monarch that in life had attained a height of
over a hundred and fifteen feet, and a trunk
eight feet in diameter, revealed many secrets.
The rings showed seasons of drought or cold,
periods of prosperity and again of stress and
injury. Lightning and fire left their indelible
marks, as well as the effect of heavy winter
snows; two imprisoned stone arrow heads and
1 Wild Life on the Rockies. Boston, 1909, p. 31.
206
SOME LABRADOR TREES
some rifle bullets suggested interesting inci-
dents, and an imbedded stone on the cliff side
of the tree together with fractures of roots that
had occurred in the year 1811 or 1812 suggested
an earthquake.
Nothing of this spectacular sort did I find in
my study of Labrador trees, but I had deter-
mined on this trip to make as many sections
of the trees as I could, and I had brought a
saw for the purpose, because in my previous
visit to Labrador I had cut down and sectioned
a few of the dwarf specimens with the best
instrument I then had, a sheath knife, and
found they were all tough and some of them
were surprisingly old and interesting. Thus:
" A little larch that had successfully risen to
the great height of nine inches in a gully, I
found on sectioning and counting the rings
with a pocket lens to be thirty-two years old.
The massive trunk was three-eighths of an inch
in diameter. A balsam fir with a spread of
branches of twenty-seven inches, whose top-
most twig was thirteen inches from the ground,
showed fifty-four rings in a massive trunk two
inches in diameter. Another balsam fir nine
inches high and twenty-one inches in extent
207
A LABRADOR SPRING
showed thirty-five rings in a trunk one inch and
a quarter in diameter. A black spruce eleven
inches tall and twenty-two in extent, with a
trunk only one inch in diameter, had lived over
half a century, showing fifty-two rings in its
cross section. The sturdy little veteran wreaked
his vengeance on me by making a great nick in
the sheath-knife with which I laboured to
dissect him and learn his secrets." x
In this Labrador spring I counted the rings
on the large stumps and in some of the smaller
ones on the spot, but most of my studies are
from sections that I cut and labelled, and
afterwards studied at home, for the Labrador
spring is so short. When the tree has grown
rapidly the rings are wide and easily counted
by the naked eye, but in most of the stunted
Labrador trees the growth is so slow that a
strong hand lens is necessary, and in some of
the smaller, much stunted ones I made the
sections with a razor, mounted them in a
drop of oil, and counted the rings with the low
power of a compound microscope. I found
that careful smoothing of the section with a
razor or sharp knife and oiling it brought
1 Along the Labrador Coast. Boston, 1907, pp. 43-44.
208
SOME LABRADOR TREES
out the rings more plainly and it was often
possible by shifting around the circle to count
the full number of rings, when in a direct line
to the periphery from the centre, portions of
the rings might be illegible. Pins used in the
larger sections to mark off various points in
the counting were also of help. Most of the
sections were counted two or more times and
an average struck in case of disagreement, so
that I believe my counts are fairly accurate.
I made in this way an examination of twenty-
six trees, larches, balsam firs, and black and
white spruces that varied in height from one
and a half inches to fifty-five feet. The most
stunted specimens, the ones that grew the
slowest and were least in height, were to be
found on the sea-shore and in the bogs. Be-
yond the Mingan Islands the shore and par-
ticularly the islands took on a more arctic
appearance, and, in places exposed to the full
fury of the wind, the trees were prone on the
ground, although, even as far east as Natash-
quan, trees of twenty feet in height were found
close to the shore in fairly protected places.
The bogs, with their deep sphagnum moss and
acid waters, their underlying ice even in June,
209
A LABRADOR SPRING
and their exposure to the full fury of all the
winds that blew, appeared to be particularly
difficult places for the growth of trees, yet it
was evident that it was only by the slow growth
through many years of these trees and bushes
that the bog was consolidated and became fitted
for the support of a large growth. The forest
works in from the sides and extends in islands,
so gradually that centuries must elapse before
the progress is even noticeable. The truth of
this statement is made probable by the follow-
ing observations on trees of the bogs. Thus
in one of the bogs on top of Esquimaux Island,
a balsam fir whose trunk was three-quarters of
an inch in diameter, whose height was twelve
inches and the extent of whose branches was
twenty-four inches showed by its rings a
struggle of twenty-four years. A black spruce
six inches high with a trunk one and one-half
inches in diameter was fifty- three years old.
Another black spruce nine inches high and
one-half an inch in diameter was sixty-two
years old.
Larches are common enough in the bogs, but
one must look carefully in order to pick up a
little tree with a trunk one-eighth of an inch
210
LARCH TREE SIXTEEN YEARS OLD, FROM BOG AT ESQUIMAUX
ISLAND' SLIGHTLY ENLARGED.
PHOTOMICROGRAPH OF SECTION OF TRUNK SHOWING
SIXTEEN ANNUAL RINGS.
Photographs by Prof. E. C. Jeffrey and Mr. E. W. Sinnott.
SOME LABRADOR TREES
thick, a height of one and one- half inches and
a spread of branches two inches across. Yet
this was not a seedling, for sixteen years as
shown by its rings under a powerful micro-
scope had passed over its head. It seemed
cruel to pluck up such a tree after it had been
so well started in life, and tuck it into one's vest
pocket. The other larches, and there were ten
of them, that I measured, sectioned and
counted from the bogs of Esquimaux Island
gave the following figures:
Height
of
tree.
Extent
of
branches.
Diameter
of
trunk.
Rings.
12 inches
38 inches
2 inches
55
3* "
8
I "
42
6
30 "
f "
43
5 "
8
I "
31
12 "
24
* "
45
* "
38
2
2 "
* "
8
3 "
4 "
i
1 9
2 "
3 "
A "
10
6 "
18
* ."
40
The lack of uniformity in growth is of course due
to the many and complicated problems of
211
A LABRADOR SPRING
environment, for no two of these trees were
exposed to exactly the same conditions of
sunlight, wind, depth of snow, soil, amount of
water, etc.
A larch that grew on the wind swept islands
of Quatachoo, that was twenty inches tall
and forty-five in extent, with a trunk one and
one-half inches in diameter, had taken twenty
years to grow. Another larch exposed to the
winds of Esquimaux Island for one hundred and
ten years had attained a height of three feet,
a spread of eleven feet and trunk some two
inches in diameter; and after all these years
of struggle it was cut down by a traveller, but
I trust its memory will long remain green.
The only other larch I measured was a giant
in a sheltered valley of an island of Quatachoo,
and I scaled a steep rocky cliff by the shore
and waded through a snow bank to my waist
on the 2pth of May to take his photograph.
A robin and a white-throat sang in this shel-
tered valley while the surf thundered on the
outer shore, and scuds of sea-fog drove over
head, and in the stunted spruces close to the
snow bank on the upper slopes a white-crowned
sparrow, the aristocrat of his tribe, sang his
212
SOME LABRADOR TREES
mournful song. The valley was picturesque
in its rugged beauty and full of deep interest.
This larch was the largest in a group of gnarled
and twisted monarchs that must have defied
the storms for many ages. He was still alive
and the green buds of promise were appear-
ing on his topmost boughs, which were fully
thirty feet up in the air. At a distance of
two and a half feet from the ground he meas-
ured six feet in circumference. How I should
have enjoyed counting his rings, which must
have numbered many hundreds, but even if it
had been possible to cut him down and smooth
off his stump it would have been indeed sac-
rilegious. May he live for many ages yet to
come!
On this same island, however, I did steel my
heart and cut down a splendid spreading mat
of verdure, a balsam fir that had grown com-
paratively rapidly on a southern slope, but
one that was so exposed to the gales from the
gulf that it had reached a height of but three
feet. One could walk over its compact top sur-
face, which measured eighteen feet from side to
side, but could not rest under the shadow of its
branches unless one had been able to burrow
213
A LABRADOR SPRING
into the ground like a fox, or flatten oneself
out like paper. The trunk was four inches
in diameter and contained sixty-seven rings.
A balsam fir fifteen feet high and two and
one-half inches in diameter had grown rather
rapidly for nineteen years, then very slowly
for fifty-four years, and rapidly again for the
last six. One might infer that its neighbours,
starting at about the same time, so surpassed
it when it was nineteen years old, that for
over fifty years the lessened sun-light made its
growth slow and painful, but that six years ago
a storm had laid so many of its companions low
that it plucked up heart in the renewed sun-
light and grew like a sapling again, only to
be slain in its lusty seventy-ninth year by man
the destroyer. And for what purpose? To
count its rings forsooth!
The stump of a favoured balsam fir at Es-
quimaux Point that I examined showed twenty-
one rings in a diameter of four and one-half
inches. Its early life, however, had been rather
difficult, for at the end of fifteen years it had
reached a diameter of only an inch. Another
balsam fir at Mingan had a diameter of trunk
of eight inches, and had grown to be over thirty
214
SOME LABRADOR TREES
feet in height in nearly a century, for I counted
ninety-seven rings. Conditions were favourable
for the first fifty years, but during the last
forty-seven only a very little additional growth
in girth was attained.
A black spruce at Esquimaux Island, grow-
ing with a multitude of others in close compe-
tition for sun and air, attained a height of ten
feet and a diameter of trunk of two inches in
fifty-six years. In its early youth, its first
forty years, it reached a diameter of only
five-eighths of an inch. Another black spruce
on the same island, one that had to contend
on the shore with the winds of the gulf, ex-
tended over six feet of ground, but grew to
a height of only thirty- two inches. Its trunk
was sturdy, three and three-quarters of an inch
in diameter, and it contained seventy-seven
rings. I counted two large black spruce stumps
at Mingan ; the first was in a thicket close to the
tree containing the pigeon hawks' nest, and
had been, if as tall as that tree, about forty-five
feet high. There were 121 rings in a circumfer-
ence of thirty-nine inches, eighteen inches from
the ground; about half the growth took place
in the first forty years, after this progress was
215
A LABRADOR SPRING
slow. The other tree was on the edge of the
forest close to a marsh, where conditions for
growth were so favourable that it had attained
a diameter of fifty-eight inches in ninety-nine
years.
A white spruce stump close to the house at
Mingan with a circumference of seventy inches
two feet from the ground had lived 132 years;
there were thirty-seven rings in the last inch.
Another, a veteran, that had been cut down
twenty inches from the ground on Mingan
Island and left where it fell, had been fifty-five
feet tall. Its stump sixty-five inches in circum-
ference and eighteen inches in diameter was
sound to the very centre, and showed 226 rings.
Between its 5oth and iSoth years it had grown
with uniform rapidity, as the rings were broad,
but after that its growth was slow, and in the
last three-fourths inch of its circumference it
showed forty-six rings. If we suppose the tree
had been cut down within a year, it must have
begun life in the year 1683, or only three years
after the founding of the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany.
The distinction between the three different
species of spruces is at times confusing. The
216
SOME LABRADOR TREES
thick, sturdy yellowish green needles of the
red spruce, the slender, more delicate blueish-
black foliage of the black spruce, and the hand-
some blue green branches of the white spruce
are generally recognizable at a glance. One
recognizes one's friends, however, not by noting
that their eyes are black or blue, their noses
are aquiline or otherwise, but by their general
appearance, their distinctive air, by an in-
tangible something one would be at a loss to
define. I have known two brothers, one with
black eyes, the other with blue, one with a
beard, the other beardless, yet with a such
strong family likeness to each other that they
have been mistaken at a distance. The orni-
thologist often recognizes birds by little traits
that are unknown to the beginner, who is
slowly mastering the recognized field marks
of the books. The former knows a blue-bird
in the dusk when the blue back and the red
breast look all of one colour. In the same way
the master of the subject of trees can often tell
at a glance the species, although he may not
be conscious of the steps by which he arrived
at his diagnosis. To an amateur this is a con-
summation devoutly to be hoped for, and in the
217
A LABRADOR SPRING
case of the spruces, I am endeavouring to hasten
the process of familiarity by planting one of
each species within a few yards of my country
house, so that I can watch them grow and be-
come intimate with every stage in their prog-
ress. With the same idea I have planted what
I have fondly called my forest where I have
devoted an acre of land to New England trees
only, no foreign intruders are allowed. Here
some fifty different species and many individuals
are growing up. Only a few years ago one had
to take care not to step on the forest in the
grass, and my forest was the joke of my friends,
but now the trees are rapidly extending above
my head, and the birds of the air delight to
lodge in their branches, for after all the birds
are at the bottom of this scheme, but inci-
dentally I am learning much of trees. Until
one is perfectly familiar with the general
habit, the intangible family air of the different
species, it is a good plan to learn some special
field marks. The long cones of the white
spruce are of course distinctive. In the red
and black spruces the. cones look much alike, but
in one species the cones generally fall off every
year, in the other they persist for years. I have
218
SOME LABRADOR TREES
been confused like the old lady and her indigo
as to these cones until I invented the very simple
mnemonic : black bind, red reject their cones.
Labrador trees could tell some very inter-
esting stories if they could only talk, but they
teach one lesson at least, that one cannot judge
of age by size, looks are indeed deceptive.
219
CHAPTER X
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS
" Les rivieres sont des chemins qui marchent."
Pascal.
'TTVHE Labrador Peninsula, like a mighty
* sponge, holds much water in its meshes,
frozen into flinty ice it is true during the greater
part of the year, but abundantly fluid during
the brief summer season. As one cruises along
the southern coast line in spring, one passes a
series of watercourses large and small, each
bearing out into the green waters of the Gulf
its dark brown floods laden with tree trunks
and evergreen branches. Even at a distance
of two or three miles from shore, the less dense
fresh water is often distinct from the heavier
sea- water which it overlays, and a curious
effect is produced by the churning up of the
green sea-water, so that it contrasts strongly
in the steamer's wake with the tea coloured
fresh water on either side.
All the rivers are frequented by trout and
220
THE OLD SALMON-FISHER OF MINGAN TENDING HIS NETS.
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS
nearly all by salmon, and although these
southern rivers are leased by sportsmen for
fly-fishing, the majority of the salmon are
caught not for sport but as a business in nets.
For some distance to the east of Seven Islands
there is a salmon-net at every mile mark along
the sandy shore. At the Moisie River a large
salmon-fishery is in operation. At Mingan
the Hudson's Bay Company sets several nets,
the old salmon-fisher with whom we stayed had
four or five more along the beach and at the
island opposite, and two Gaspe* men, camped
at the mouth of the Mingan River, set six or
seven more. Nets at the mouths of rivers are
allowed if they do not extend more than one
third of the way across. With all these nets to
intercept the salmon on their way up the Mingan
River to spawn it would seem as if few would
escape, yet the owner of the river was just
beginning his fly-fishing season as we left, and
the fishing was generally good in the pools below
the falls. We were told that at times the falls
were black in places with the fish, tirelessly
trying again and again to surmount them.
We saw none there on June 2ist but it was
still rather early in the season.
221
A LABRADOR SPRING
Salmon were plentiful at the mouth of the
river, however, and it was always interesting
to watch the men take the splendid great fish
out of the nets, and pack them in snow to await
transportation by steamer to Quebec. The
nets were generally supported by upright poles
which extended out at right angles with the
shore to a distance of two or three hundred
yards. V-shaped trap nets were placed at
intervals at right angles to the main net on
the side from which the salmon came; the
opening to the trap was on the shore side, as a
bewildered fish always strikes out into deeper
water when he fears capture. In their struggle
to escape they are securely caught by the gills
in the meshes of the net. Cartwright in his
poetical epistle on Labrador says:
"The Salmon now no more in Ocean play,
But up fresh Rivers take their silent way.
For them, with nicest art, we fix the net;
For them, the stream is carefully beset;
Few fish escape : We toil both night and day.
The Season's short, and Time flies swift away."
He spread his nets across the whole river!
Napoleon A. Comeau, the veteran naturalist
and hunter of the north shore of the Gulf of St.
222
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS
Lawrence, for forty-nine years guardian of the
Godbout salmon river, has written several
chapters on the salmon in a recent interesting
book. 1 He says that these fish move in from
the deeper waters of the gulf each year about
the middle of May to the shores on both the
north and south sides. To the west of Mingan
the salmon follow the coast up the St. Law-
rence River; at Mingan and below they follow
the coast to the eastward. All are intent on
entering the rivers to spawn, and this entrance
begins about the loth of June and continues
to the end of July. They remain in the estu-
aries of the rivers for some time before fighting
their way up the swift current and through
the rapids and falls of the rivers. The sites
chosen for spawning, which takes place in
September and October, are clear gravelly
bottoms where the current is fairly swift. In
the spring the salmon are in the best of con-
dition, fat and silvery, but towards the end
of October they are dark in colour and ema-
ciated and the males show " a snout like a pig
with an immense hook on the under jaw." " A
J Life and Sport on the North Shore of the Lower St.
Lawrence and Gulf, Quebec, 1909.
223
A LABRADOR SPRING
considerable proportion of the salmon that
spawn early enough, that is to say before
the rivers freeze over, return to the sea
the same fall. But a very large number winter
in the rivers and the lakes drained by them.
These are the fish that come down the rivers
in the spring as soon as the ice breaks up and
until the spring freshets are over." These are
called kelts or lingards. While the salmon in
October are dark and emaciated, the kelts
emerge in April with shining scales, a change
which Comeau believes due to a process of
moulting the old scales and reproduction of new
ones.
The newly hatched fry are called parrs, which
" pass into the smolt stage in their third and
fourth year, going out of the rivers in August
and September and sometimes in October."
In October they range in weight from half a
pound to a pound and a half. The next season
they ascend the rivers in July, August and
September under the name of grilse, weighing
then three to five pounds, still small enough
to run through the regulation salmon-nets with
a mesh of five inches.
Rivers polluted by saw-mills or in other
224
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS
ways are avoided by spawning salmon, while
rivers, like the Manitou, with falls of such a
size that the fish are unable to ascend them, al-
though there is much good spawning ground
above, are also avoided. Eventually these
rivers will be treated as are similar rivers in
Norway, where fish ladders are built enabling
the fish to pass by the falls.
Comeau gives some interesting figures show-
ing that contrary to the usual belief the catch
of salmon has increased over thirty per cent,
of late years. Thus the average yearly catch
of salmon for the whole of the Province of
Quebec for the years 1896, '97, '98 was 685,000
pounds, for 1906, '07, '08 over one million
pounds. He also presents some records of
fly-fishing on the St. John and Moisie Rivers.
During the season of 1871, five sportsmen be-
tween June 23d and July i8th caught with
the fly 416 salmon having a total weight of
4,755 Ibs. ; the largest fish weighed 26 Ibs.
In 1869 the result of 16 days' fishing with the
fly by one man on the Moisie was 138 salmon
weighing 2,413 Ibs., or an average of nearly
17 1-2 Ibs.; the largest fish weighed 37 Ibs. In
1871 the records of three rods in the Moisie was
225
A LABRADOR SPRING
325 fish weighing 5,789 1-2 Ibs., averaging about
1 8 Ibs. apiece; the largest fish in this case
weighed 34 Ibs.
During our stay at the old salmon-fisher's
at Mingan we saw something of the river of this
name, and we paddled up the three navigable
miles of its course to where it emerges from
the high land of the interior, and falls some
thirty feet over the Laurentian rocks to the
level of the sandy shore-plateau. Except for
the large volume of water, for the setting in the
dark forest and the background of the mysteri-
ous highland of the interior, these falls do not
call for any especial mention. Below the falls
the stream is one of considerable beauty, gen-
erally about a quarter of a mile wide, flowing
through the elevated plateau by banks of wind-
blown sand and spruce forests and bordered
by alders and birches.
Just back of the Hudson's Bay Company's
Post the river is rapidly wearing away the
sand cliffs of the right bank, but, rebounding,
it pursues a long S-curve to the sea. The char-
acter and extent of this curve is shown by the
fact that by one path from behind the salmon-
fisher's house the distance to the river is about
226
THE MINGAN RIVER BACK OF THE H. B. C. POST.
NEST OF THE PIGEON HAWK.
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS
two hundred yards, by another, a straight
path by the telegraph wires, the river lower
down is reached at a distance of over a mile,
while along the beach to the mouth of the
river the distance is about three-fourths of a
mile. The continual wearing back of the right
bank by the impact of the river at the summit
of the curve threatens the little settlement
between it and the gulf, and it would not be
difficult to calculate when the river will break
through at this point, and wash the Honour-
able Hudson's Bay Company's Post into the
sea.
We were casting our flies for trout one day
from a sandy beach at the mouth of the Mingan
River when two competitors appeared in the
shape of a pair of seals, loups marines,
wolves of the sea the habitants call them, and
indeed they are nearly right both from a bio-
logical and practical point of view. It was a
pretty sight to watch their gambols, as with
arched backs they would rush above the sur-
face, and then disappear, or would throw them-
selves half out of water with a mighty splash
in the excitement and enjoyment of the chase.
I tried hard to see the trout in their jaws, but
227
A LABRADOR SPRING
the seals were too quick for me. The fish im-
mediately ceased striking, and evidently skulked
in alarm. I was only too glad, therefore, on
hearing the cries of a pigeon hawk, to lay down
my rod and follow the bird until it plainly in its
great anxiety pointed out its nest. This was
situated about twenty-five feet from the ground
in a tall black spruce, and was built of dry
sticks and thickly lined with soft rootlets,
small twigs and strips of soft bark, and it con-
tained five thickly spotted, chocolate-brown
eggs. Both parents flew about with rapidly
quivering wings uttering their sharp vibrating
ki ki ki; the voice of the smaller male was dis-
tinctly higher pitched and less harsh than that
of his larger mate. From time to time they
swooped down with great fury and swiftness
at the intruder, but always glanced up before
reaching him.
The Romaine River, one of the largest rivers
of the southern part of the Labrador Peninsula,
empties into the Gulf of St. Lawrence half way
between Mingan and Esquimaux Point. At
some distance from the coast it forms the most
important highway into the interior, and is
annually used by the majority of the Mon-
228
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS
tagnais Indians. As the lower part of its
course is interrupted by numerous rapids and
falls, the Indians ascend the St. John River
and portage, with aid of a series of lakes and
small streams to the Romaine, where its waters
flow more smoothly. Low, 1 who has followed
this route, says of the Romaine below the place
at which the portage-route leaves it: " Noth-
ing is known of the river for over fifty miles
below this point, except that it is quite im-
passable for canoes, probably on account of
long rapids with perpendicular rocky walls,
where portages are impossible. Nothing but
the absolute impossibility of passing up and
down this part of the river would induce the
Indians to make use of the present portage-
route between the Romaine and St. John Rivers,
which is the longest and worst of those known
to the writer anywhere in north-eastern Canada.
Careful inquiries from a score of. Indians met
coming inland afforded no information con-
cerning this part of the river, which has never
been descended by any one so far as known."
1 A. P. Low, Geological Survey of Canada. Report on
explorations in the Labrador Peninsula, Ottawa, 1896, p.
170.
229
A LABRADOR SPRING
This point in the Romaine River where the
known leaves off and the unknown begins is
about 75 miles in a straight line from the sea
according to Low's map, or about 100 miles by
the river. The number of portages from the
Romaine to the St. John River, according to
Low, is thirty-one, " and their combined length
aggregates nineteen miles and a half." The
water part of this route between the two rivers,
made up of lakes and small streams, aggre-
gates some forty miles in length. The diffi-
culties of this long portage must be great, but
it only serves to emphasize the fact that the
lower course of the Romaine is impas-
sable.
Cabot gives an interesting derivation
for the name of this river, a derivation
very different from the apparent one of Italian
origin. He says: "Its Indian name ' Alimun,'
meaning difficult, has passed through a re-
arrangement of sounds unusual in the ad-
justing of Indian names to French organs
of speech. From * L'Alimun ' to ' La Ro-
maine ' the transition is easy, surprisingly
so, considering that no less a feat is involved
than the introduction of the full rolling r
230
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS
into a language which has not the r-sound at
all." '
Although we caught a glimpse from the
steamer of the Romaine River as it empties
into the sea, our most satisfactory and inter-
esting acquaintance with it was in the wilder-
ness north of Esquimaux Point, for here the
river flows from east to west parallel with the
coast. Our search for the Romaine was made
on July nth, a day on which many of the
smaller birds had arrived, and winter was
changing to summer, a day when the tempera-
ture climbed above 60 at noon, although it
registered only 48 Far. morning and night.
The path from Esquimaux Point starts at the
crucifix behind the village, and goes north
through the spruce and balsam woods, woods
that were stunted by frequent cutting. We
soon came to a bog, the familiar bog of Labra-
dor, overflowing with moisture, a great sponge
of sphagnum moss and reindeer lichen, inter-
spersed with clumps of Labrador tea and laurel
and alder, and with scattered larches and
spruces, so dwarfed and prostrate as to scarce
Labrador, by W. T. Grenfell and Others. New York,
1909, p. 193-
231
A LABRADOR SPRING
rise above the moss. The botany of these bogs,
plains or tundras, whatever one may choose to
call them, always interested me and helped on
in the difficult work of traversing them. Bog
trotting, forsooth, bog trudging, in truth,
for when one sinks at every step nearly to the
knee in the wet, elastic moss, one wishes for
wings or perhaps snow-shoes. Audubon in a
letter to his wife from this coast written July
23, 1833, says: " Think of Mosses in which at
every step you take you sink in up to your
knees, soft as velvet, and as rich in colour."
Over four of these bogs we passed, each
larger than the last, and we crossed inter-
vening ridges grown up to woods. In one place
there was a bare, sandy ridge, the edge of a
raised beach, but little changed since its ele-
vation above sea level.
In the bogs were numerous ponds of all
sizes from an acre to a square mile or two in
extent. These ponds represent the contest
between the force of water and of the growth
of vegetation. It is evident that these plains
were once the sea, and as the land rose and the
sea was cut off they became great shallow
fresh water lakes, around and in which the bog
232
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS
growth was constantly pressing. Now some
of the plains are filled with vegetation, in others
the ponds remain with everywhere mossy and
bushy edges, which are constantly striving
to gain foot hold waterward. In places, es-
pecially on the sheltered sides, it is evident
that vegetation is conquering the water, ex-
tending out in spots in floating islands over the
surface. On the opposite side, exposed to the
waves created by the strong, prevailing winds,
the vegetation is in places undermined and
falling in. That the bog will eventually win
in this battle is only too evident. Then in turn
the bog gives way to the evergreen forest grad-
ually creeping in, the way paved by a growth
of bushes which help to consolidate the spongy
mass.
In one of the small ponds of a bog was a tiny
islet, on which was a mass of goose down. Peer
as we might we could not see the goose eggs
that we were sure were concealed in this mass,
and it was useless to attempt to wade or swim
to the island, for the water, although clear on
top and but a few inches to a few feet deep,
was filled with flocculent peaty mud below of
uncertain depth. However, a general photo-
233
A LABRADOR SPRING
graph from a distance of the pond and islet
and nest was taken, and this was sufficient to
show the fact that Canada geese still nest near
the southern Labrador coast. We saw eight
or ten geese that day, some of whom honked
cheerfully while others appeared to be nervous
at our approach, and it was probable that
more nests were concealed in the neighbour-
hood.
The last ridge we crossed that day was of
considerable extent and thickly wooded, and,
although threaded with several paths which
were evidently used in winter wood cutting,
there was no sign of a path over the extensive
bog beyond. Hitherto we had been guided
by an occasional stake, but here there were
none. However, we determined to press on
due north towards the rocky ridge of mountains
which appeared no nearer than when we started,
marking carefully the point where we left the
woods, near some limestone cliffs that faced the
inland sea of moss, just as the cliffs of Es-
quimaux Island face the tides that flow be-
tween them and the shore. Some time, if the
upheaval still continues, Esquimaux Sound
will be replaced by moss.
234
FALLS OF THE MINGAN.
THE ROMAINE RIVER NORTH OF ESQUIMAUX POINT.
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS
This was the most extensive bog of all, and
although we were occasionally encouraged by
dog signs which showed that we were going
in the direction taken by the dog-sledges in
winter, we had begun to be very sceptical
as to the existence of the river at all, for
we had trudged on for five hours, and we had
been told that the river was only five miles off.
These, however, were winter miles with a foot-
ing of ice and snow for fast-running dogs.
Suddenly right before us, sweeping across our
path was the river, and this view alone well
repaid us for all our efforts. There was a
sudden drop in the tundra, a big snowbank, a
fringe of birches just leafing out in delicate
green, and waving their yellow tassels of cat-
kins to the breeze, a few spires of spruces almost
black in comparison, and then, but a stone's
throw away, and forty or fifty feet below us,
the mighty river, dark blue but flecked with
whitecaps, flowing swiftly to the westward.
Its breadth was about a third of a mile, and
beyond stretched a great plain of dark green
spruce forest, the typical forest of the Hud-
sonian zone, dark, impenetrable, mysterious.
A small winding branch stream entered the
235
A LABRADOR SPRING
main river almost opposite. Beyond the
forest plain was a wooded ridge of hills, and
beyond this at a distance I could not even
guess, was the eternal ridge, the foreguard
of the rocky heights of the interior, a ridge
blue and gray and white.
To the east there was a glorious view of the
river flowing swiftly towards us for two or three
miles, and issuing from the forest to the north.
Here and there on either side of the river were
low white sand-banks, their whiteness making
a beautiful foil for the dark green spruces and
blue water. Near at hand, on the south side of
the river above the fringe of birches which
skirted the edge, was a forest of tall gaunt
spruces, a few giants standing out bare and
leafless save for a tuft of dark green which
crowned their summits. Below us to the west
the river was parted by a wooded island, and
the roar of the rapids on either side came to our
ears like the surging of a mighty wind. Above
the blue sky was flecked with fleecy clouds,
and great cumuli were boiling up from the
mountains in the north.
We climbed down over the snowbank into the
wet, tangled forest below, but could not approach
236
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS
the water on account of the thick fringe of
alders, so we scaled again the bank, and found
a warm sunny spot just below the edge, where,
sheltered from the chilly wind which blew
across the tundra, we could feast our eyes on
the river to our heart's content. Close at our
feet the snowbank still held many trees and
bushes in its fetters. They were still leafless,
while those below were clothed in the green
of early summer. A larch near at hand, bent
and twisted by the weight of many winters,
had just emerged black and bare from the
winter's blanket, yet it already showed on its
topmost branches a promise of faint green buds.
In the narrow valley below another larch hid
its black branches under a green veil, and re-
joiced in its strength. Near the snow drift
the ground was naked, or brown and sere,
while a few feet away it was clothed in the
delicate green of young grasses and tender
herbs. The bank above my head was blossom-
ing with the white flowers of the cassandra,
while the purple buds of the andromeda and
the pale yellows once of the Labrador tea
were just ready to open. In all three of these
the leaves were fully out, for they are ever-
237
A LABRADOR SPRING
green, and had remained from the previous
summer.
A redstart, the " little torch " of the Cubans,
and a magnolia warbler, gems of beauty which
to the uninitiated would appear to be birds of
the tropics only, were flitting about among the
treetops, constantly expressing their love and
joy of life in songs. That of the redstart was
" sibilant and insistent," that of the magnolia
warbler recalled the famous words veni, vidi,
vici. A lonely loon was swimming in the
surges below and then rose and flew into the
dark forest beyond.
The snowbank, the soft, tender birches and
larches, the mysterious, mighty river, the
dark, trackless forest, the distant mountains,
the shadowy high land of the north, the land of
the ptarmigan, the caribou and the Indian,
all made a picture I shall never forget. The
spirit and the charm of wild beauty and mys-
tery pervaded it all.
It was possible to enjoy all this ethereal
beauty and mystery, and yet to be of the earth,
earthy, and I hold that there is no shame in the
latter, for we enjoyed a dinner of the best on this
glorious day. After some erbsewurst soup,
238
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS
hot in the frying-pan, a kindly provision of
circumstances which forcibly, and at times
painfully, checks too much haste, we were able
to eat our cake as well as to keep it, for we
partook of a Labrador spruce partridge whose
skin we preserved as a specimen, and topped
off oh ! ye gods with what we were pleased
to call chocolate ice cream a mixture of
scraped sweet chocolate and snow.
As we returned over the tundra a sudden cold
wind swept down on us from the north bearing
with it a few drops of rain. Four geese flew
low against the blast, and, setting their wings,
alighted on the margin of a lakelet, where they
kept up a continuous conversational honking.
Two great black-backed gulls soared over head,
and the roar of the river was intensified in the
gusts. Gaining the first forested ridge, we
looked back to the mocking mountains which
appeared nearer than ever, as the north wind
had cleared the atmosphere. As we approached
our little village at the end of the day, we were
so fortunate as to see a pair of marsh hawks,
sailing over a bog, a bird that was recorded by
Audubon from Labrador and by only one other
observer, for Stearns obtained a specimen there
239
A LABRADOR SPRING
nearly thirty years ago. Our expedition to the
Romaine River was well worth while.
The Moisie River is an old Indian route into
the interior, by way of an east branch of the
Cold Water River, Lake Ashuanipi and the
Ashuanipi River, Lake Petitskapau and the
Grand River. It was the Moisie River that
Henry Yule Hind ascended in 1861, and of
which he published in 1863 a most interesting
work in two volumes entitled: " Explorations
in the Interior of the Labrador Peninsula, the
Country of the Montagnais and Nasquapee In-
dians." Hind began the ascent of the river
by canoes on June loth, 1861, and, after many
difficulties and trying portages, reached on
July 2d, by way of the east branch, the height
of land 2,240 feet above the sea, and over a
hundred miles from it in a straight line. On
his return he ran some of the six formidable
rapids and, on reaching the mouth of the Moisie
early in July, he says "we .... took up our
quarters under the hospitable roof of Mr. Holli-
day, the lessee of the Moisie Salmon Fishery,"
which is continued by the sons who also
own the line of mail steamers to this day.
I was glad to see the mist of the mighty falls
240
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS
of the Manitou River rising up in the dark
forest as we steamed along the coast, even if I
could not see the falls themselves, which are a
mile and a half from the shore. The river is the
third or fourth in magnitude on the coast, and
the falls, which make a sheer descent of 1 13 feet,
must be of considerable grandeur and beauty.
Hind relates that the " Manitou River takes
its name from the following incident, which is
often described in Montagnais wigwams to
eager listeners never weary of repetition. About
200 years ago, when the Lower St. Lawrence was
first visited by the Jesuits, the Montagnais
were at war with the Souriquois or Micmacs
of Acadia, who inhabited the south shore of the
St. Lawrence and the country now called New
Brunswick. A large party of Micmacs had
crossed over the estuary of the St. Lawrence at
its narrowest point and coasted towards Seven
Islands, but not finding any Montagnais there,
they descended during the night-time to the
Moisie, and thence to the Manitou River, down
which stream a few Montagnais bands were
accustomed to come from the interior to the
coast, to fish for salmon and seals. The Micmacs
landed some miles before they reached the
241
A LABRADOR SPRING
Manitou River, hid their canoes in the woods
and stole towards the falls of the Manitou, to
lie in ambush until the Montagnais should
descend to the portage. The Montagnais knew
their strength, and in the dim morning light
began the fight at once, and after severe loss
succeeded in killing or taking all but the leader
of the Micmacs' band, a noted warrior and
conjuror, and one whom the Montagnais were
most anxious to take alive. Finding escape
hopeless, he sprang to the edge of the cataract,
and, crouching behind a rock, began to sing
a defiant war-song, occasionally sending an
arrow with fatal effect at those who were bold
enough to show themselves. The Montagnais,
sure of their prey, contented themselves with
singing their songs of triumph. The Micmac
chief and conjuror suddenly jumped upon the
rock behind which he was hidden, and apt.
preached the Montagnais, telling them to
shoot. But the Montagnais wanted their
prisoner alive, so they let their arrows rest. The
conjuror next threw away his bows and arrows,
and invited them to come and attack him with
their knives. The Montagnais chief, anxious
to display his courage, rose from his conceal-
242
FALLS OF PIASHTE-BAI RIVER.
NEAR THE FOOT OF THE FALLS.
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS
ment, knife in hand, and, throwing away his
bow and arrows, sprang towards the Micmac,
who, to the amazement of all beholders, re-
treated towards the edge of the rock over-
hanging the falls, thus drawing his enemy on,
when, with sudden spring, he locked him in a
fatal embrace, and, struggling towards the
edge of the precipice, leaped with a shout of
triumph into the foaming waters, and was in-
stantly swept away over the tremendous cata-
ract, which has since borne the name of the
conjuror's or the Manitousin Falls."
On the 28th of May we paddled and rowed in
a modified or " evolved " canoe up the Piashte-
bai River. A mile from the bay brought us to a
considerable expansion of the river, and, had
it not been for our guide, we might have spent
many hours in searching the shores of this lake
for the continuation of the river above. As
it was we were shown the river where we least
expected it, flowing for a mile through a
drowned muskeg, and then emerging from the
forest with rapid course. The swift current
finally prevented further progress, and, landing
on the right bank near an old bear trap, we fol-
lowed through the thick spruce woods an Indian
243
A LABRADOR SPRING
portage path that soon began to ascend the
rocky barren hills we had seen before us. This
path ends on the high land at a small lake from
which the river discharges, and throws itself
in a broken fall of great beauty down a hundred
and fifty feet or more into the forest below.
Although the falls are not a sheer descent, but
form an angle of about forty-five degrees, the
effect is grand, as the great volumes of white
waters come bounding down the decline, ap-
pearing to burst and throw themselves thirty
or forty feet into the air in their progress.
The setting in the wild forest added much to
the beauty of the scene, for, with the exception
of the faintly marked Indian portage-path,
there was no sign of man to be found, there
was no park, no " path to view the falls." By
gradually working my way through the thick
spruces and birches that grew luxuriantly in the
constant spray, I managed to reach a point of
advantage at the foot of the falls. Both the
air and the fallen tree on which I stood were
quivering and throbbing with the pulse-beat
of the cataract, which roared loudly in my ears,
and the trees swayed with the force of the blasts
of air and spray. The leaping, spouting waters,
244
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS
plunging down with a front of over a hundred
feet, contract to half this width at the foot and
take an abrupt turn to the right to form the
rapids and whirlpools below.
All the rivers were not large, and we spent
many happy hours bird-watching and explor-
ing in the neighbourhood of an attractive stream
near Esquimaux Point. Inquiring of our good
friend the government doctor stationed at this
village as to its name, for the stream was not
noticed on the chart, he modestly confessed
that the villagers called it La Rivikre du Doc-
teur, because he kept a canoe on it in summer
above the rapids, and fished it for trout. As
we frequently dined on its bank we occasionally
cast a fly, but the waters were still too cold with
melting snow, and we never beguiled a trout
from them into the pan. I can testify not
only to the coldness of its waters, but also to
the swiftness of its current and the sharpness
of its limestone bed, for interesting birds had
an annoying habit of flying to the opposite
bank. My companion, more thoughtful than I,
had provided himself with hip rubber boots,
but he generously paid the penalty by act-
ing the part of the old man of the sea, on
245
A LABRADOR SPRING
the rare occasions when we did not lose each
other.
Perhaps the most frequent and certainly the
most prominent bird song heard near this river
was that of the fox sparrow. Its wonderfully
clear flute- like notes came forth from the
spruces at all times of day, delivered with a
great precision, and with a mastery of tech-
nique that can scarcely be rivalled in the bird
chorus. One who has heard only the imperfect
songs of this bird in its brief passage through the
eastern States, and before the ecstasy of its
passion has been attained, can not realize the
intensity and scope of its love utterances in its
breeding home. It was a song that one could
not but admire for the beauty and richness of
its performance, but at the same time one felt
that it lacked the charm, the soul, the spirit-
uality or whatever one may call it that applies
so forcibly to the divine song of the hermit
thrush or the simpler melody of the white-
throated sparrow, songs of which one never
tires.
Sometimes the brightest gems are buried in
obscure and unexpected places. In one of the
scientific publications of the Boston Society
246
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS
of Natural History for the year 1883, the follow-
ing by Mr. William Brewster, who paid a flying
visit to southern Labrador in 1881, more clearly
expresses these thoughts, and well describes
the song of the fox sparrow and its settings:
" What the Mocking-bird is to the South,
the Meadow Lark to the plains of the West,
the Robin and Song Sparrow to Massachusetts,
and the White-throated Sparrow to northern
New England, the Fox Sparrow is to the bleak
regions bordering the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
At all hours of the day, in every kind of weather
late into the brief summer, its voice rises among
the evergreen woods filling the air with quiver-
ing, delicious melody, which at length dies
softly, mingling with the soughing of the wind in
the spruces, or drowned by the muffled roar
of the surf beating against neighbouring cliffs.
To my ear the prominent characteristic of its
voice is richness. It expresses careless joy and
exultant masculine vigour, rather than delicate
shades of sentiment, and on this account is
perhaps of a lower order than the pure, passion-
less hymn of the Hermit Thrush ; but it is such
a fervent, sensuous and withal perfectly-
rounded carol that it affects the ear much as
247
A LABRADOR SPRING
sweet-meats do the palate, and for the moment
renders all other bird music dull and uninterest-
ing by comparison."
Another small stream, yet of considerable size,
was one whose distant roaring added to the
charms of the little protected harbour among
the Isles des Corneilles, where we had cast
anchor. This stream, this River of the Crow,
for such I suppose was its name, gave me but
a glimpse of its rushing, turbid waters as it
came pouring down through the spruce forest,
whose melting snows were silently adding to
its volume. From these dark and tangled
evergreen thickets not only here but also along
the whole coast, a wonderfully varied and de-
lightful bird-song would emerge at frequent
intervals and at all times of day. Like most
of the inhabitants of this coast the bird spoke
French, and, with great clearness and insistence,
it would frequently and repeatedly call tout
de suite. At least so it seemed to me, but per-
haps it was because of my recently acquired
sensitiveness to the French language, for in
Newfoundland and other English-speaking
countries I had never noticed this French
phrase. It would also say loudly and clearly
248
BOG ENCROACHING ON POOL AND FOREST ENCROACHING ON BOG.
SPRUCE FOREST, SNOW-BANK AND THE RIVER OF THE CROW.
SOME LABRADOR RIVERS
pop-a-teet, sweet sweet, or repeat the sweet, sweet
continuously for minutes at a time. These and
many other notes were but the preludes or in-
terludes to the real song which varied with the
singer or his mood, but, in what I deemed its
classical form, consisted of three parts: the
first faint and lisping, suggestive of the black
and white warbler; the second clear and flute-
like recalling some of the notes of the robin,
while the third part, the climax, is a wonderful
succession of delightfully musical triplets with
rising inflection. One might imagine that not
one, but several birds were thus performing,
or if there were but one performer, he would
be at least as large as a bullfinch. This wonder-
ful singer, the ruby-crowned kinglet, is, however,
about the bigness of one's thumb, and how he
manages to get so much melody out of his little
frame, or so much inspiration from a wilderness,
is to me an unexplained mystery.
While the eastern Labrador coast is conspic-
uous for its rocky headlands, its deep harbours
and narrow fiords, this portion of the southern
coast is equally conspicuous for its long reaches
of sandy shores, its coastal plain and its barrier
j mountain range, and while the drainage on the
249
A LABRADOR SPRING
eastern coast concentrates the chief part of its
floods at one point, the Grand River in Hamilton
Inlet, the southern coast is remarkable for the
number and size of its rivers, which pour out at
frequent intervals along the shore. These
rivers are, with but trifling exceptions, still
unknown by the white man except at their
mouths where they are leased for salmon-fishing,
and, although they lie at our doors, their op-
portunities for exploration and adventure still
remain unheeded.
THE END.
250
Index
NOTE. The scientific names of the birds and plants are
given after their common names.
Acadia, 64.
Acadians, 64, 65.
Acadians, Religion of, 73-81.
Agriculture, 70, 71.
Alder, Speckled (Alnus incana), 13, 18, 237.
Andromeda (Andromeda glaucophilla) , 16, 237.
Aspen (Populus tremuloides) , 46.
Audubon, 26, 125, 129, 232, 239.
Auk, Razor-billed (Alca tor da), 58, 128.
Avens, Mountain (Dryas integrifolia), 22.
Bake-apple, see Cloudberry.
Balsam Fir (Abies balsamea), 15, 19, 210, 213-215.
Barge, 105, 165.
Battle Harbour, 152.
Bay, Piashte-bai, 115, 117.
Bay of Seven Islands, 37.
Bay, Yellow, 121.
Bay, Washtawooka, 123.
Bearberry (Arctostaphylos Uva-ursi and A. alpina}, 17.
Beaver, 115, 116, 167.
251
INDEX
Bendire, Charles, 101.
Betchewun, in.
Billiards, 143, 144.
Birch, Canoe (Betula alba), 14, 19, 37, 46, 235.
Bird Song, Evolution of, 27.
Bissot, Sieur de la Riviere, 41, 172.
Blanche, Monseigneur Gustave, 77.
Bluebird (Sialia sialis), 12.
Bog, 15, 24, 48, 63, 209, 210, 231-233.
Bonnycastle, Sir Richard, 96.
Boudrot, Ferman, 65.
Boulders, Glacial, see Erratics.
Brant (Branta bernida), 38, 39.
Brass bracelet, 115.
Brewster, William, 98, 247.
Burgomaster, see Gull, Glaucous.
Burrows of puffin, 127.
Cabot, John and Sebastian, 40, 41.
Cabot, W. B., 150, 161, 230.
Calli on trees, 19.
Canoe, Indian, 104, 120, 165.
Cartier, Jacques, 39, 40, 152.
Cartwright, Capt. George, 13, 32, 130, 131, 152, 222.
Cartwrights, Three modern, 130-148.
Cassandra (Chamaedaphne calyculata} , 16, 237.
Catlin, George, 176.
Cats, 162, 163, 165.
Church of St. Peter, 69, 74-76.
Clark City, 38.
Cloudberry (Rubus Chamaemorus), u, 26, 49.
Coastal plain, 49, 123, 226.
Collins, Robin Company, 54.
252
INDEX
Cod, 71, 73-
Comeau, N. A., 222-226.
Cook, Capt., 41.
Cormorant, Double-crested (Phalacrocorax auritus), in-
113, 117, 118.
Cornel, Dwarf (Cornus canadensis), 16, 49.
Corpus Christi, Feast of, 78-81.
Corte-Real, Caspar, 41.
Courtship of black duck, 95, 96.
Courtship of eider, 84-89.
Courtship of golden-eye, 89-95.
Courtship of some Labrador birds, 83-103.
Courtship of ruffed grouse, 98, 99.
Courtship of spruce partridge, 100, 101.
Courtship of ptarmigan, 99, 100.
Courtship of puffin, 96, 97.
Cow parsnip (Heracleum lanatum), 14, 20, 127.
Crepes, 124.
Currant (Kibes triste, also R. prostratum and gooseberry,
R. oxycanthoides), 13, 20.
Dogs, Eskimo, 134.
Dogs, Indian, 163.
Dress of Indians, see Indians, dress of.
Dress of French inhabitants, 43, 71, 75.
Duck, Barrow's golden-eye (Clangula islandicus} , 94, 141.
Duck, Black (Anas rubripes), 95, 132.
Duck, Eider (Somateria dresseri}, 63, 84-89, 107, 114, 159.
Duck, Harlequin (Histrionicus histrionicus) , 119.
Duck, Long-tailed (Harelda hyemalis), 52, 53.
Duck, Golden-eye (Clangula clangula americana}, 89-95.
Eel-grass (Zostera marina'), 38.
Egging and eggers, 159.
253
INDEX
Eider, see Duck, Eider.
Eider-down, 159.
Elevation of the land, 109, 123, 232.
Erratics, Glacial, 47.
Eskimos, 151, 152.
Esquimaux Point, 13, 65-82.
Eudist fathers, 77.
Falls of the Manitou River, 240-243.
Falls of the Mingan River, 226.
Falls of the Piashte-bai River, 244, 245.
Falls of the Riviere Blanche, 53.
Ferland, Abbe, 81.
Fires, Forest, 46, 149, 168.
Fishermen, 67, 73, 74.
Fish-flakes, 54.
Fishing boats, 42, 54, 72, 73-
Flies, 32.
Flight song, 49.
Flycatcher, Least (Empidonax minimus}, 27.
Flycatcher, Yellow-bellied (Empidonax Haviventris} t 26-30,
32.
Foxes, Black, Breeding of, 136-140.
Frazar, M. Abbott, 125.
Fur-trader, 115, 169, 172.
Gannet (Sula bassand), 54, 58, 59-
Gaspe, 37.
Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 39-
Glacial phenomena, 37, 47, 48, 61.
Goldthread (Coptis trifolia), 16, 20.
Goose, Canada (Branta canadensis), 114, 234, 239.
Granitic rocks, 37, 49, 118.
Grenfell, Dr. W. T., 68, 106, 126.
254
INDEX
Grilse, 224.
Guillemot, Black (Cephus grylle}, 62.
Gulf of St. Lawrence, 36.
Gull, Glaucous (Larus glaucus}, 51.
Gull, Great black-backed {Larus marinus), 63, 109-111,
239-
Hakluyt, 33, 39.
Harrington, 126.
Havre des Sauvages, 122.
Hawk, Marsh (Circus hudsonicus) , 239.
Hawk, Pigeon (Falco columbarius), 228.
Hearn, Capt, 126.
Hind, Henry Yule, 44, 149, 150, 166, 167, 176, 240.
Holliday Brothers, 50, 240.
Horned Lark (Otocoris alpestris), 45.
Hubbard, Mrs. Leonidas, 150.
Hudson's Bay Company, 42, 59, 167, 170-175, 216.
Hylas, 17.
Ice, 24, 25.
Indians, Algonquin, 151.
Indians, Diseases of, 177-179.
Indians, Dress of, 155-157, 163, 164.
Indians, Dwellings of, 157, 158, 177.
Indians, Iroquois, 151, 152.
Indians, Migration of, 166.
Indians, Montagnais, 149-179, 229, 241-243.
Indians, Nascaupee, 151, 167.
Indians, Religion of, 160, 161, 165.
Indian Trading House, 174, 175.
Island of Anticosti, 49.
Island, Bald, 127, 128.
255
INDEX
Island, Charles, 108.
Islands of the Crow, see Isles des Corneilles.
Island, Esquimaux, 17, 21, 61-63, 108.
Island, Faux Pas, 109.
Islands, Perroquets, 58.
Island, Hunting, 108, in.
Island, Little St. Charles, 128.
Islands, Mingan, 59.
Island, St. Genevieve, 60.
Island, Sea-cow, 108.
Isles des Corneilles, 114, 153-
Jay, Blue (Cyanocitta cristata), 141.
Jolliet, Louis, 41.
Junco (Junco hyemalis) , 30.
Juniper (Juniperus communis var. depressa and 7. hori-
zontalis), 15.
Kelt, 224.
Kinglet, Ruby-crowned (Regulus calendula}, 30, 248, 249.
Kingbird (Tyranus tyranus), 26.
Kneeling posture, 120, 157.
La Belle Marguerite, Cruise of, 103-129.
Labrador Company, 172.
Labrador Fur-trading Co., 124.
Labrador Peninsula, Definition of, 36.
Labrador Tea (Ledum groenlandicum), n, 16, 231, 237.
Language, French, 43, 65-67.
Language, Indian, 170.
Larch (Larix laricina}, 14, I9 210-213, 237.
Lark, Horned, see Horned Lark.
Laurel (Kalmia polifolia and K. angustifolia}, 16, 48, 231.
256
INDEX
Legs in traps, 133.
Lichens, 15, 46, 47.
Limestone, 17, 22, 60, 61, 62, 234.
Lobsters, 113, 122, 137.
Long Point, 58.
Loon (Gavia immer), 51, 52, 162, 238.
Loss of hair, Story of, 124, 125.
Low, A. P., 44, 49, 150, 151, 229.
Lucas, F. A., 59.
Margot, see Gannet.
Marigold, Marsh (Caltha palustris}, 20.
Martial, 104, 105, 106, 120.
Maryland yellow-throat (Geothlypis trichas), 31.
Mathias, 104, 105, 107, 115, 121.
Mica mine, 117.
Mills, Enos A., 206.
Mingan, 59, 170.
Mingan, Seigniory of, 41, 171, 172.
Modern bird-study, 186-188.
Moisie, 50.
Mosquitoes, 32, 33.
Mountains, 38, 43-50, 234, 236.
Mountain Ash (Pyrus americana) , 14, 20.
Mount St. John, 44, 58.
Murre (Uria troille}, 132.
Musquarro, 160, 161.
Natashquan, 20, 123, 124.
Nest of Canada goose, 233, 234.
Nest and eggs of double-crested cormorant, 112, 113.
Nest and eggs of eider, 114.
Nest and eggs of golden-eye, 90.
257
INDEX
Nest and eggs of great black-backed gull, 109, 1 10.
Nest and eggs of spruce partridge, 129.
Nest and eggs of pigeon hawk, 228.
Nest and eggs of puffin, 127.
Old Squaw, see Duck, Long-tailed.
Omelet, 116, 117.
Orchid, Calypso {Calypso bulbosa), 21.
Ox, Magpie, 54-57-
Parr, 224.
Partridge, Hudsonian spruce (Canachites canadensis), 100,
101, 129.
Pashasheeboo, 122.
Perroquet, see Puffin.
Phalarope, Northern (Lobipes lobatus), 109.
Pipit (Anthus rubescens), 30, 45.
Pitcher-plant (Sarracenia purpurea), 15.
Plongeur, see Duck, Golden-eye.
Plover, Piping (^Egialitis meloda), 125.
Porcupine, 167, 168.
Priests, 76-80, 125, 160, 161.
Primrose, Mealy (Primula farinosa var. incana), 22.
Protection to nesting birds, 159.
Ptarmigan, willow (Lagopus lagopus}, 45, 141, 167.
Puffin (Fratercula arctica), 58, 96, 97, 127, 128.
Purple finch (Carpodacus purpureus}, 49.
Quatachoo, 118.
Raquettes, see Snow-shoes.
Raspberry, Arctic (Rubus arcticus), 30.
Raven (Corvus corax principalis} , 62.
258
INDEX
Red-osier (Cornus stolonifera}, 14, 20.
Redstart (Setophaga ruticilla), 18, 21, 31. 238.
Refrigerating plant, 141.
Rhodora (Rhodora canadense}, 48.
Richelieu, Cardinal, 171.
River, Agwanus, 122.
River, Crow or Corneille, 113, 248.
River, Grand or Hamilton, 46, 150.
River, Grand or Sandy, 53.
River, Little Natashquan, 123, 124.
River, Magpie, 54.
River, Manitou, 225, 240-243.
River, Mingan, 30, 45, 221, 226, 227.
River, Moisie, 50, 166, 225, 240.
River, Nabesippi, 122.
River, Natashquan, 125, 160, 166.
River, Piashte-bai, 243-245.
River, Romaine, 18, 24, 121, 166, 228-240.
River, St. Marguerite, 37, 166.
River, St. John, 151, 166, 225, 229.
River, St. Lawrence, 37.
River, Shelldrake, 54.
River, Thunder, 54.
Rivers, Some Labrador, 220-250.
Riviere Blanche, 53.
Riviere Du Docteur, 245, 246.
Robes noirs, Les, see Priests.
Robin (Planesticus migratorius), 14, 30, i7-
Ross, Dr., 42.
Ruffed grouse, Drumming of, 08, 99-
Sails, Dyed, 105.
Saint Cuthbert, 159-
259
INDEX
Salmon, 50, 221-226.
Salmon-fisher's house, 113, 170.
Salmon, Migration of, 223-225.
Salmon Nets, 221, 222, 224.
Salmon, Yearly catch of, 225.
Sand dunes, 125, 126, 162.
Sandpiper, Spotted (Actitis macularia), 107.
Saxifrage, Mountain (Saxifraga oppositifolia), 17.
Scoter, Surf (Oidemia perspicillata) , 193.
Sea-birds, Extermination of, 158-160.
Sea-pigeon, see Guillemot, Black.
Seals, 123, 134, 227.
Selous, Edmund, 97, 193, 195, 196.
Seal Rock, in.
Seven Islands, 36, 42.
Sexual selection, 89, 97.
Shechootai, see Cloud-berry.
Skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus), 12.
Sleeping-bag, 107.
Smolt, 224.
Snow, 11, 14, 19, 21, 23, 30, 50, 114, 235, 237.
Snowberry (Chiogenes hispidula), 16.
Snow bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis), 14, 30, 132.
Snow-shoes, 173.
Sparrow, Fox (Passer ella iliaca), 14, 30, 80, 107, 114, 246-
248.
Sparrow, Lincoln's (Melospiza lincolni), 14, 32.
Sparrow, Tree (Spizella monticola), 114.
Sparrow, White-crowned (Zonotrichia leucophrys}, 14, 114.
Sparrow, White-throated (Zonotrichia albicollis), 14, 30,
107, 114, 132.
Sphagnum, 15, 25, 231.
Spring, A Labrador, 11-35.
260
INDEX
Spruce, Black (Picea mariana), 15, 210, 215, 216, 217.
Spruce, Red (Picea rubra), 15, 217.
Spruce, White (Picea canadensis), 15, 124, 216, 217.
Stearns, W. A., 239.
Strathcona, Lord, 174.
Sun-baths, 35.
Submersion of the land, 48, 49.
Swallow, Bank (Riparia riparia), 108, 109.
Swallow, Tree (Iridoprocne bicolor), 162.
Temperature, 24, 26, 34.
Tern, Caspian (Sterna caspia), 125.
Tern, Common (Sterna hirundo), 122.
Thayer, A. H., on Concealing-coloration, 89.
Thrush, Hermit (Hylocichla guttata pallasii), 30, 80, 132.
Tickle, 50, 121.
Toads, Trilling of, 17, 18.
Traps, 133, 243.
Trees, Some Labrador, 206-219.
Tremblay, Dr. J. E., 104.
Trout, 220, 227.
Tundra, see Bog.
Turner, L. M., 99.
Village, An Acadian, 64-82.
Violet, White (Viola incognita), 20.
Wallace, Dillon, 150.
Walrus, 41, 108.
Warbler, Black-poll (Dendroica striata), 30, 31.
Warbler, Magnolia (Dendroica magnolia), 21, 31, 238.
Warbler, Nashville (Vermivora rubricapilla) , 31.
Warbler, Wilson's (Wilsonia pusilla), 31, 49.
261
INDEX
Watcheeshoo, 119.
Whale Factory, 38.
Whales, 50, 51.
Wilson, J. A., 46, 149, 179.
Whitbourne, 33.
Willow (Salix groenlandica, S. vestita, S. anglorum, S.
Candida}, n, 20.
Wing, Bastard, Use of, 188, 189.
Wings and feet in the air and under water, 180-205.
Wood pewee (Myiochanes virens}, 26.
Wood-pulp, 38.
Wren, Winter (Nannus hiemalis), 32.
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